Preamble

The House met at half-pas Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BRITISH WATERWAYS BILL

THAMES CONSERVANCY BILL

DERBY CHURCHES (SAINT CHRISTOPER'S, SAINT PETER'S AND SAINT PAUL'S) BILL

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

LIVERPOOL CORPORATION BILL

As amended, to be considered tomorrow.

OLDHAM CORPORATION BILL

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

EXETER CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

ROYAL ALBERT HALL BILL [Lords]

Read a Second time and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Council House Rents

Mr. Rossi: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government how many local authorities since November, 1965, have either adopted thoroughgoing rent rebate schemes or undertaken a review of their rent policies along these lines, in consultation with his Department, as the result of his White Paper entitled "The Housing Programme 1965 to 1970", Command Paper No. 2838, in return for the more generous subsidies herein mentioned.

Mr. Winnick: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether

he will seek power to establish a review body for council house rent increases.

Mr. Iremonger: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what action he is taking to encourage local housing authorities to adopt fair rent rebate schemes.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Richard Crossman): Comprehensive information on council house rent policies is not available and I am taking steps to remedy this lack of basic housing data. Statistics compiled by the Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants, which cover about two-thirds of local authorities, show that in 1964–65 42 per cent. operated rent rebate schemes. I do not think it would be appropriate to establish a review body for council house rent increases, but I propose to hold consultations with local authorities on the lines of paragraph 41 of the Housing White Paper of last November.

Mr. Rossi: Can the Minister state why he maintains the fiction that local authorities are autonomous in a field where they can do nothing without the approval or financial help of the Government, but will not compel them to recognise the social justice that public money should not be spent on those well able to pay their own way?

Mr. Crossman: I will tell the hon. Gentleman. In my view, the recognition of social justice is something done better voluntarily by an act of free will. Local authorities are entitled constitutionally under law to set council house rents and allocate tenancies. It is quite untrue to say that that is a fiction. It is a basic principle of local democracy.

Mr. Winnick: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is unfair to impose increases in council house rents of more than £1 a week? Will he agree that some kind of review machinery is necessary? Will he further agree that, unlike his remark of last week, where council house tenants are in a minority they have not got the ballot box necessarily as the answer?

Mr. Crossman: I hold the view tenaciously that when we have a local democracy we must trust to the working of local democracy. As for council house


rents going up, I agree that there are cases where councils act with imprudence. But, on the whole, they are bound by the rules of their housing revenue accounts, and it would not be true to say that they can do this illegitimately.

Mr. Ironmonger: May I say to the right hon. Gentleman that we on this side would like to see this made positive Government policy, that we believe that the subsidising of the rents of council tenants is quite out of date now, and that he ought to take active steps to see that local authorities charge the full economic rent without any subsidy?

Mr. Crossman: That is interesting news. The hon. Gentleman will have to convince, first of all, his own spokesman on housing on the Opposition Front Bench who shares my point of view on this point.

Mr. Arnold Shaw: Would my right hon. Friend agree that a rent rebate scheme which inflicts the rebate on the rents of other council tenants is an unfair one?

Mr. Crossman: I would not agree with that. I think that a rent rebate scheme which enables one to charge somewhere near the economic rent at the top of the scale in order to collect funds with which one can subsidise the rents of less well-off people is a perfectly reasonable system and one which I would suggest to councils that they should use.

Mr. Rippon: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to express my own views in my own way in due course. Will he accept that while I agree with him that we should give the maximum opportunity to local authorities to order their own affairs, when they are receiving increased subsidies out of the public purse they ought to have some regard to how that public money is paid? Will he consider taking some action to ensure that the deficiencies in in housing revenue accounts are controlled?

Mr. Crossman: I think that what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said is true, that councils should consider these matters, and I have told the councils quite clearly that with these generous new subsidies I shall watch the situation and call them together. I believe that I can

get it done voluntarily. If it is not done voluntarily, I agree that some other action must be taken.

Properties for Sale (Acquisition)

Mr. Winnick: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will encourage local housing authorities with lengthy waiting lists to purchase properties which are for sale and which could easily be converted for council accommodation; and whether he will seek power to enable him to give financial help in acquiring such properties.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Robert Mellish): My right hon. Friend is very willing to consider loan sanction approval for the purchase of such properties in appropriate cases. Improvement grants are available to local authorities for any necessary modernisation.

Mr. Winnick: Would not my hon. Friend agree that in some circumstances local councils should be helped by some kind of housing subsidy if these acquired properties are going to the general housing pool? Would not my hon. Friend further agree that there are some councils—Tory councils—which seem to have a political doctrinaire objection to acquiring property for the general housing pool?

Mr. Mellish: A subsidy for properties of this kind would require legislation, and this is certainly not contemplated at this moment of time. As far as I am aware, all progressive councils which wish to acquire this sort of property can take advantage of the present legislation.

Residential Caravan Dwellers

Mr. Murray: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what are his plans for legislation for the protection of residential caravan dwellers.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. James MacColl): My right hon. Friend cannot promise any early legislation on this matter. We are continuing to consider what is the best way of dealing with this problem, but it is too early to make any definite proposals.

Mr. Murray: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, but would not he agree that it is a very serious matter that residents of caravan sites are being exploited, and that legislation is urgent and necessary?

Mr. MacColl: In general, I agree with my hon. Friend. As he knows, we are awaiting the Report of the Consumer Council which has been examining this problem, and I think that the Report will be of great help to us.

Sir H. Harrison: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, generally, there is a shortage of sites and that authorities are slow in giving planning permission for the extra sites which are required? Many people want to live in caravans.

Mr. MacColl: There are difficulties about caravan sites. They tend to take up a lot of ground, and they sometimes create amenity problems in areas of scenic beauty.

Private Housing Associations

Mr. Iremonger: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will make a statement on the progress being made by private housing associations in England and Wales in providing accommodation to rent.

Mr. Crossman: During 1965 housing associations of all types completed 3,837 new houses and flats in England and Wales compared with 1,561 in 1962, 1,925 in 1963 and 2,852 in 1964. The figures are therefore rising steadily. Precise figures of the numbers that were built for renting in each year are not available but they were between 85 per cent. and 90 per cent. of the total.

Mr. Iremonger: In view of the encouraging progress being made, will the right hon. Gentleman start considering bringing to an end the whole policy of local authority housing, and divert his energies to private housing associations?

Mr. Crossman: No, Sir.

Rent Assessments

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware that the first nine decisions of the rent assessment committees did not state what was the controlled rents of these

dwellings or of identical dwellings, where available; if he will now state what they were; and if, in future, this will be done by the rent assessment committee whereever possible.

Mr. MacColl: Comparisons with controlled rents cannot be drawn in all cases. For example, the 1956 rateable value may be above the limit for control set by the Rent Act, 1957, or the dwelling may have been improved and the current rateable value may not therefore bear a direct relationship with the 1956 rateable value.

Mr. Allaun: Is my right hon. Friend aware that some of these decisions overruling the rent officers have fixed rents three times as high as the controlled rents, which indicates that the shortage factor or market value is not being disregarded in the way the Act requires?

Mr. MacColl: As my hon. Friend knows, we had an interesting and useful discussion of this matter last Friday. I have nothing to add to what I said then.

Sir C. Osborne: Will the Minister look at a Question put down by his hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) two years ago, when he complained that the biggest factor in high rents was the interest charge resulting from a high Bank Rate? Why was it an evil under the Tories, and why is it a virtue under the Socialists?

Mr. MacColl: The hon. Member's, question is a very good indication of why it is desirable to leave these matters to rent officers and rent assessment committees.

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will state the determinations of the rent officers, up to the most recent date available, for the London boroughs, and for each provincial rent office.

Mr. MacColl: With permission, I will circulate the figures in the OFFICIAI REPORT.

Mr. Allaun: As so far only 8,200 cases—a tiny proportion of the number of extortionate rents—have been submitted to the rent officers, will my hon. Friend consider giving far wider publicity, preferably on television, to the opportunities afforded by the Act?

Mr. MacColl: We are at the moment watching the load on the rent officers and the rent assessment committees with considerable care. We do not want to in-

RENT ACT 1965


APPLICATIONS FOR REGISTRATION OF FAIR RENTS:—DETERMINATION BY RENT OFFICERS up to and including 14th May, 1966



Number of Determinations


Rent Assessment Panel Areas and Registration Areas
Previous Rent Reduced
Previous Rent Unchanged*
Previous Rent Increased
Total Determined


LONDON






In operation from 3rd January, 1966






City of London
…
…
—
—
—
—


Westminster
…
…
57
11
42
110


Camden
…
…
43
44
14
101


Islington
…
…
68
7
11
86


Hackney
…
…
109
4
3
116


Tower Hamlets
…
…
166
69
16
251


Greenwich
…
…
42
20
13
75


Lewisham
…
…
53
1
4
58


Southwark
…
…
158
6
32
196


Lambeth
…
…
95
18
36
149


Wandswotth
…
…
29
16
3
48


Hammersmith
…
…
113
6
22
141


Kensington and Chelsea
…
…
74
29
72
175


Waltham Forest
…
…
67
25
8
100


Redbridge
…
…
31
7
5
43


Havering
…
…
10
2
8
20


Barking
…
…
21
1
2
24


Newham
…
…
81
2
2
85


Bexley
…
…
23
10
14
47


Bromley
…
…
35
4
16
55


Croydon
…
…
54
3
11
68


Sutton
…
…
22
6
4
32


Merton
…
…
45
11
8
64


Kingston upon Thames
…
…
19
3
11
33


Richmond upon Thames
…
…
26
2
9
37


Hounslow
…
…
27
—
5
32


Hillingdon
…
…
17
5
54
76


Ealing
…
…
76
6
24
106


Brent
…
…
109
11
28
148


Harrow
…
…
4
16
13
33


Barnet
…
…
48
47
19
114


Haringey
…
…
106
1
16
123


Enfield
…
…
43
1
3
47


TOTALS (London Panel Area)
…
…
1,871
394
528
2,793


* The column "Previous rent unchanged" includes applications for registration supported by certificates of Fair Rent.

crease that load until we are sure that the existing machinery can bear it.

Following are the figures:

Number of Determinations


Rent Assessment Panel Areas and Registration Areas
Previous Rent Reduced
Previous Rent Unchanged*
Previous Rent Increased
Total Determined


Walsal
…
23
2
4
29


West Bromwich
…
1
—
8
9


Wolverhampton
…
1
2
5
8


Worcester
…
1
—
2
3


TOTALS (West Midland Panel Area)
…
149
66
62
277

House-Building Costs

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what is his estimate of the percentage increase in the cost of a house which will result from the Selective, Employment Tax.

Mr. Costain: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government by what percentage he expects the price of new houses to rise in Great Britain solely as a result of the new Budget proposals.

Mr. Mellish: I would refer to my Answer to a Question by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) on 17th May.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say what social or economic purpose is served by imposing this tax in a way which deliberately adds to the already rapid increase in the cost of a house?

Mr. Mellish: If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the reply which I gave the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) he will see that the estimate is about 2 per cent. of the cost of the average house, which we think should be partly offset by lifting the import surcharge and the extension of the new investment grants to the construction industries.

Mr. Costain: Does not the hon. Gentleman remember that when the surcharge was added he said that it would be insignificant? Why, when it is taken off, does he say that it is of considerable effect? Does he realise that this increase is adding to the highest increase in building costs in living memory? What are the Government going to do about it?

Mr. Mellish: The effect of this tax in terms of increased costs depends upon how much of the extra cost is passed on. Possibly the hon. Member, with his great influence in the building industry, will be able to persuade that industry, for a change, to take some of this cost to itself and not to try to pass it on.

Sir G. Nabarro: Is it not a fact that the Answer to the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) was made before mortgages were costing 7⅛ per cent.? Do not mortgages enter into the cost of a house? Why will he not give the House a factual reply?

Mr. Mellish: The hon. Member has been away for some time and has probably forgotten that throughout the reign of the Conservative Party the cost of housing rose continually. We are as concerned about this as anybody else. We hope that these costs will be borne to a great extent by the building industry.

Mr. Rippon: Does the Minister agree that last year the price of a house rose by the greatest amount since records were kept? Does he agree, further, that the Answer that he gave to the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) means that the cost of a three-bedroom house will increase by £70 or £80, and that the increase in cost of a flat may be even greater?

Mr. Mellish: The information that I have been given by the people in the Ministry who have investigated this matter is that the cost will rise perhaps by £60. As for the percentage increase, last year was not the highest; it was the same as the last year under the Tory Government—10 per cent.

Mr. Henig: Can my hon. Friend give a guarantee that in the event of there being a sharp rise in prices the whole matter will be referred to the Prices and Incomes Board?

Mr. Mellish: My hon. Friend had better direct that question to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr. Brewis: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what he estimates will be the percentage rise in the cost of a house in October 1966 over the cost two years before, assuming that labour and commodities remain at today's prices and the Selective Employment Tax is imposed.

Mr. Mellish: The average cost to local authorities of a 5-person 3-bedroom house rose by about 15 per cent. between the last quarter of 1964 and the first quarter of this year. As to the effect of the Selective Employment Tax, I would refer to my Answer to a Question by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) on 17th May, and my answers on the Floor of the House today.

Mr. Brewis: Is it not true that most of this colossal rise has been caused by extra taxation and other Government action? When will the Government carry out their pledge in the election to cheapen the cost of housing?

Mr. Mellish: That may be the hon. Gentleman's political view, but there are other opinions. An investigation into some of the increased house prices has

shown that they may be due to high profits still being made on houses.

Mr. Rippon: Does that apply to local authority houses?

Mr. Mellish: Local authorities still have an enormous problem of having to pay expensive prices for land. That is why we are concerned now with introducing the Land Commission.

Building Societies (Funds)

Mr. Stratton Mills: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will introduce legislation to formulate a scheme with the building societies so that they can run down their liquidity and whereby in an emergency funds may be made available to them through the Bank of England, subject to full security.

Mr. Crossman: I have not such plans at present, but my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I are always prepared to consider any proposals the building societies may make to us for improving their service to the public. Meanwhile, we await the report of the National Board for Prices and Incomes.

Mr. Mills: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that about £900 million of building society money is put aside for liquidity purposes to meet a sudden withdrawal? Will he study the scheme prepared by the Abbey National Building Society, which would make further moneys available to house purchasers?

Mr. Crossman: I can only repeat that we will consider all these schemes. Now we had better wait until the National Board for Prices and Incomes has studied the matter impartially.

Housing Completions (Owner-occupation)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government how many houses for owner-occupation were completed in the last six months; how many were started; and how these figures compare with those for the corresponding period in the previous year.

Mr. Crossman: In the six months November 1965 to April 1966 private builders in Great Britain completed


99,300 houses and started 92,800, compared with 110,200 and 119,400, respectively, in the previous year. Most of these will have been for owner-occupation.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In the light of those figures, will the right hon. Gentleman say what action he now proposes to take to redeem his election pledges to help owner-occupiers and, in particular, his promise that legislation on mortgage rates and interest is coming forward?

Mr. Crossman: Yes, the right hon. Gentleman knows that we are now discussing the details of the administration of our option mortgage scheme. I have every reason to think that it will not take very long. Then we shall incorporate it in our Housing (Subsidies) Bill and bring it forward.

Mr. Frank Allaun: While welcoming what the Government have done in making retrospective the 4 per cent. interest rates to local authorities, could the Minister consider bringing forward that section of the Housing (Subsidies) Bill to a date earlier than this autumn so as to give the 2½ per cent. reduction to many owner-occupiers, as many of us think that this will be the best fillip of all to the housing programme?

Mr. Crossman: I appreciate my hon. Friend's motive in this, and I agree that it is extremely important that we should reach agreement with the building societies and be able to announce the precise details of the plan. This will he done. This is more important than the exact date of the legislation. What is important is the announcement of the agreement and the details, and that will not be long postponed.

New Houses (Prices)

Captain W. Elliot: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government by what percentage the price of new houses rose in Great Britain in 1965.

Mr. Pym: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government by what percentage the price of new houses rose in Great Britain in 1965.

Mr. Mellish: About 10 per cent. for a private house and 12 per cent. for a local authority two storey 3 bedroomed house.

Captain Elliot: Is it not deplorable that the policies of the right hon. Gentleman have not only succeeded in reducing the number of houses built for owner-occupation but also caused a dramatic increase in their prices? Would he not agree that the increase in price of local authority houses is directly responsible for the great increase in rents in many cases?

Mr. Mellish: In the local authority sector, one of the reasons for the increase in prices is the fact that we are insisting on improved standards—we have minimum Parker Morris standards—and that, in the building market generally, there has been a substantial increase in the cost of labour and materials. Average weekly earnings rose by 9 per cent. and materials by 4 per cent. Although we, too, deprecate the rise in prices, this is not something which has come about suddenly under the Labour Government. It happened consistently under the Conservatives.

Mr. Rippon: Whatever may have hapened under a Conservative Government, does the hon. Gentleman remember that the Prime Minister gave election pledges in 1964 to cheapen the cost of housing? When will the cost of housing be cheapened?

Mr. Mellish: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has, of course, made all his General Election speeches and they evidently got him personally back to the House, although not his party. The right hon. and learned Gentleman knows that there are adequate reasons why prices have risen in the last year, but we shall be judged on our record in a full period of office.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In the light of his Answer to Question No. 14, can the hon. Gentleman now say whether it is the policy of the Government to take steps to increase or to diminish house prices?

Mr. Mellish: We shall take whatever action we possibly can to encourage those who wish to buy their own homes at prices cheaper than for many years past. The right hon. Gentleman must be careful. He is asking us to promote legislation to control house prices, and there may be something in that.

System Building and New Materials

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government (1) what proposals he has to increase the output of system-built dwellings for local authorities;
(2) what proposals he has to stimulate local authorities to use new methods of building and new materials in order to increase their housing output.

Mr. Mellish: To operate with maximum efficiency, system-building requires long, continuous production runs, and concentration on a limited range of plan types. The industrialised building drive which my right hon. Friend launched last December seeks to create these conditions, to stimulate local authorities to use new materials and methods of construction, and to streamline their own operations. Details of the drive are given in Circular No. 76/65, and I am sending a copy to my hon. Friend.

Mrs. Short: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply and I shall look forward to reading the circular with interest. Nevertheless there is concern—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."] Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is concern—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] They will have their fun, won't they? Is my hon. Friend aware that there is concern about housing output? Does he not think that it would be a good idea to set up a public housing authority on the lines of the new town development corporations to build houses, so that we can be independent of private speculators who are inefficient and those local authorities who do not get their housing output on the move?

Mr. Mellish: The present figures of output of system-built dwellings, particularly by local authorities, are something of which the whole House ought to be proud. In 1964, 10·8 per cent. of the total public sector dwellings were system-built, last year it was 22,000, which is 16·9 per cent., and this year, in the first quarter, it has now gone up to 22 per cent. I think that by the end of the year about 30 per cent. of all local authority houses will have been built by system methods.

Dr. Winstanley: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that it is difficult to make full use of system-building while we continue to have more than 1,400 housing authorities which build an average of 70 houses a year? Would he consider amalgamating certain of these authorities along the lines adopted by his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for the police force?

Mr. Mellish: The hon. Gentleman had better await the statement of the Prime Minister on the Royal Commission. I agree that there is a great problem for us in the Ministry to get co-ordinated building among so many local authorities, but consortia of a large number of these authorities are in operation now and are having a great success.

Agricultural Tied Cottages

Mr. Derek Page: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what criteria he is using to assess the success of his measures to give security to tenants of agricultural tied cottages.

Mr. Crossman: The best criterion by which to judge the success of the special provisions in the Rent Act, 1965, will be whether both sides of the farming industry consider that they operate fairly in practice. I have no doubt that the National Union of Agricultural Workers will let me know if there are any cases where it considers that an agricultural worker has not received adequate protection.

Mr. Page: Is my right hon. Friend aware that while agricultural workers appreciate the improvement that has been effected, there is still considerable apprehension? Is it not time that my right hon. Friend made official statistics available so that the success or otherwise of his policies on this matter could be properly judged?

Mr. Crossman: We do not have special statistics about tied cottages. I have asked the National Union of Agricultural Workers to tell me if there are any complaints. It has made no complaint whatever so far, apart from referring to a transitional problem which will not be repeated.

Housing Conditions (Explanatory Booklet)

Mr. Wellbeloved: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will issue an explanatory booklet for the use of local councillors setting out the powers available to local authorities in respect of overcrowding, insanitary conditions and dilapidation of dwellings.

Mr. Mellish: Any simple explanation of the wide and complicated range of powers available would be liable to he misleading. Councillors would do better to rely on the advice of their officers in these matters.

Mr. Wellbeloved: Is my hon. Friend not aware that that is a most unsatisfactory reply? Is he aware that it is because the laws are complicated that it is absolutely imperative that local councillors are given some assistance by the Ministry so that they may understand the law in this respect a little better than is now the case and so that they may approach their local officials to get things done?

Mr. Mellish: We believe that a booklet could do more harm than good. It needs experts to say which statutory provisions would fit each particular case. There are dozens of Acts of Parliament which cover a whole range of activities here and on the strength of a booklet of this kind there is the danger that councillors might set themselves up as independent advisers to constituents, which might create more confusion than there is at present. It might well be the job of a councillor to know which officers of the council should be approached for advice in individual cases.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Planning Areas (Property Owners)

Mr. Loveys: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will review the position of areas that become blighted by planning proposals so that the owners may if they so wish have

their property acquired in advance of the actual development.

Mr. MacColl: The statutory arrangements are adequate. Outside these my right hon. Friend cannot at present encourage local authorities to buy land in advance of need, except when hardship is fully demonstrated.

Mr. Loveys: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that, although there are safeguards of some sort, they apply only to owner-occupiers, and that there are many cases of hardship to other owners who wish to dispose of their property? Does not the hon. Gentleman feel that it is an injustice for their assets to be frozen in this manner, sometimes for a long period?

Mr. MacColl: Where there is genuine evidence of hardship, my right hon. Friend is always disposed to give loan sanction to meet the difficulty.

Development Sites (Private Roads)

Mr. Loveys: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will review the present legal rights of developers to use private roads leading to development sites, in view of the damage to such roads being caused by them.

Mr. MacColl: My right hon. Friend is still of the opinion that this is not the right approach to the problem which the hon. Member has in mind.

Mr. Loveys: Does the hon. Gentleman recall his reply to a similar Question, when he said that the answer to this and the many other problems of private roads is for the roads to be taken over by the local authorities? May I ask whether he has any plans to help those owners who wish to have their property taken over to bring it up to the required standard before the local authority will take it over?

Mr. MacColl: My right hon. Friend is aware of the problem and is in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport to see what can be done about this intractable problem which no other Government have managed to tackle successfully.

Ministry of Land and Natural Resources (Integration)

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what administrative arrangements he is making for integrating the functions and staff of the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources with those of his own Department.

Mr. Crossman: As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister told the House last week, the integration of the staff of the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources with that of my Department is already far advanced.

Mr. Jenkin: How many staff will this amalgamation save?

Mr. Crossman: We are integrating the existing staff. The reorganisation comes at a later stage. I was asked about the integration.

Mr. Rippon: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider issuing a White Paper on this matter, as there is considerable concern about the way in which the functions of his Department are being altered, when he is already overloaded?

Mr. Crossman: I shall certainly consider it, but I should have thought that it would be more to the convenience of hon. Members, if they are keen to know, if I wrote and told them the details. These are not major reorganisations, and I think that I can deal with this best by letter.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that there will be a Minister with special responsibilities for countryside problems?

Mr. Crossman: There is a Minister with responsibility for this. It is my right hon. Friend the Minister of Land and Natural Resources.

Longleat (Lion Reserve)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what action he will take arising from the fact that a lion reserve has been set up at Longleat, Wiltshire, without the requisite planning permission having been obtained.

Mr. MacColl: I am told that when planning permission was given for the

main fence, it was known that lions were to be kept within it and that the county council had paid careful attention to the safety aspects. My right hon. Friend does not propose to take any action.

Mr. Lipton: Is it not quite ridiculous that whereas planning permission, or a licence, or a permit, is sometimes required for the most trivial changes of use and alterations, it is possible for someone to come along and fill acres of English countryside with wild animals which might be a danger to the neighbourhood, without any kind of check or control? Is it not time that local authorities were given—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is getting too long, even for lions.

Mr. Lipton: Should not local authorities be given some kind of power to change the conditions under which wild animals are kept in their areas?

Mr. MacColl: The council has the power, and it was for the council to decide whether or not planning permission was required. The council considered the matter and decided that planning permission was not necessary.

Mr. Awdry: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that these lions have given a great deal of pleasure to many visitors to Longleat?

Beaches (Oil Pollution)

Mr. Bessell: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if, in view of the fact that at present the responsibility for reducing oil pollution on beaches rests with the local authorities, he will introduce legislation to empower himself to provide grants to local authorities for this purpose.

Mr. MacColl: A discussion took place early this month between the local authority associations and the Institute of Petroleum, chaired by the Ministry. While these technical discussions are continuing, it is too early for my right hon. Friend to come to a conclusion whether any financial assistance is required.

Mr. Bessell: While thanking the hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask him to bear in mind the very serious consequences of oil pollution on the beaches around our coasts, particularly in tourist


areas? Will he therefore treat this as a matter of real urgency, recognising that it is beyond the capacity of the local authority to bear the whole financial burden?

Mr. MacColl: The Institute of Petroleum has offered to set up a joint working party with the local authority. This proposal is at present with the local authority associations to decide whether they want to participate.

Mr. Peter Mills: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that only today I have received news of the heaviest pollution that has ever taken place on our beaches in North Devon, with lumps of oil the size of footballs? Will the hon. Gentleman please look into this as a matter of real urgency?

Mr. MacColl: If we have any communication from the local authorities, of course we will look into it.

Rates

Sir D. Renton: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware that the growing rate burden creates hardship for many domestic ratepayers; and when he proposes to introduce legislation to alleviate that burden.

Mr. Crossman: I refer the hon. Member to the Local Government Bill, published last Wednesday.

Sir D. Renton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the cost has increased by about 25 per cent. in the last two years, and that the Measure to which he refers will alleviate the burden by only a small proportion? Will he state what the proportion is?

Mr. Crossman: Yes, Sir. It will alleviate the burden on the domestic ratepayer by roughly half the annual increase.

Mr. Rippon: Does the Minister agree that what he has just said means that next year the average ratepayer will receive a larger bill than ever before?

Mr. Crossman: Yes. It means that the annual increase in the rate bill, which has now been going on ever since the last revaluation, cannot be curbed until

either we halt the increase in our social services or have a form of local taxation which is expandable and does not have to be increased each year when there is a rate increase.

Mr. Winnick: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many old and retired ratepayers are extremely grateful for the new rate relief brought in last year, on which the Tory Party took no action for the 13 years when it was in office?

Mr. Onslow: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what estimate he has made of the cost involved in obtaining statistics to show the total extra cost to ratepayers in England and Wales of increases in taxation, National Insurance contributions, and higher interest rates, since October 1964.

Mr. MacColl: None. But I know the cost of obtaining them would be substantial.

Mr. Onslow: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already informed me that most of these statistics have been published? Does the Joint Parliamentary Secretary therefore wish the House to conclude, as it will, that his reason for refusing to do this is because he dare not do so for political reasons?

Mr. MacColl: My reason for not wishing to do it is because I do not wish to overburden the staff and to increase the cost of administration by trying to obtain complicated figures which are not readily available.

Town Development Schemes (Rate Burden)

Sir D. Renton: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware that the high cost of town development schemes places a disproportionately high rate burden upon ratepayers in places where such schemes have been, or are being, carried out; whether he will reconsider the financial arrangements under the Town Development Act; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. MacColl: I do not think that the evidence supports any general contention that town development places a disproportionately high rate burden on the receiving authorities.

Sir D. Renton: Will the hon. Member look into this matter much more closely? Is he aware that the Town Development Act, which had the support of all parties, was passed 14 years ago, and that the grants payable under it have proved to be quite inadequate in respect of recent developments? Will he look into the matter further?

Mr. MacColl: I examined 20 cases of town development grants in London. In eight cases the increase was higher than the national average and in 12 cases it was lower.

Oxford Inner Relief Road (Traffic Survey)

Mr. Luard: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will make arrangements for a 75 per cent. Government contribution for the proposed traffic survey for the Oxford inner relief road.

Mr. Crossman: The city Council has been told that a 75 per cent. contribution will be paid.

Mr. Luard: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply and welcome it, but will he give an assurance that this survey is undertaken with the least amount of delay?

Mr. Crossman: Certainly. It is in the interests of all concerned to get a decision on this lamentably protracted issue.

Meldon Reservoir, Okehampton

Mr. Peter Mills: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will now announce his decision on the proposals to build an impounding reservoir at Meldon, Okehampton, in view of the urgency of this matter.

Mr. MacColl: My right hon. Friend hopes to be able to do so soon.

Mr. Mills: This delay is very serious. The Minister does not seem to be able to make up his mind. Does he realise that this serious delay could cause much trouble if we have a dry summer? A decision must be made fairly soon.

Mr. MacColl: I agree with the hon. Member that this is a very serious matter, which involves the question of reser-

voirs in the National Park. My right hon. Friend will examine the question very carefully.

Camping and Caravan Sites

Dr. David Kerr: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what advice he is giving to local authorities about the establishment of municipal camping and caravanning sites and the standards of provision to be observed.

Mr. MacColl: My right hon. Friend is not aware that any further advice is necessary; but if my hon. Friend would let him know what particular difficulty he has in mind, he would be glad to consider it.

Dr. Kerr: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a good deal of concern in camping and caravanning circles about the inadequacy of the provision of amenities on camping and caravanning sites, and that the camping movement generally feels that some guidance to local authorities from the Ministry of Housing would be very helpful?

Mr. MacColl: Under the existing law, my right hon. Friend has responsibility for preparing the model standards. The enforcement of those standards and the actual details of the licences are not his responsibility. They are entirely a matter for the local authorities.

Royal Commissions on Local Government

Mr. Biffen: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if the Royal Commission on Local Government will be invited to consider the desirability of the rural borough provisions contained in the Local Government Act, 1958.

Mr. Coe: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he intends to appoint any full-time members to the Royal Commission on Local Government.

Mr. Crossman: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister hopes to make a statement on the Royal Commissions later today.

Mr. Coe: Would my right hon. Friend agree that, if we are setting a pattern for


Local authorities for many years to come, this can be done promptly only by full-time members engaged full-time on this task?

Mr. Crossman: I would ask my hon. Friend to await the Prime Minister's statement later today.

Drowning Accidents

Sir B. Janner: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware that, out of a total of 834 drowning accidents in England and Wales in 1964, 103 occurred in Lancashire, 84 in Yorkshire and 57 in London; and whether he will call for a -eport from these counties as to the action taken by them following his Circular No. 52/65.

Mr. MacColl: My right hon. Friend is aware of these figures and has made it clear that he wants local authorities to take all necessary steps to prevent drowning accidents. It is less than a year since Circular 52/65 was issued and he does not think he would be justified, on the 1964 statistics, in asking local authorities to submit special reports.

Sir B. Janner: Is my hon. Friend not aware that the very serious incidence of drowning could be avoided to a considerable extent if the precautions were taken which the Government want taken, and those which are indicated, particularly in this circular? Will he make public the fact that such steps should be taken by every county and every authority?

Mr. MacColl: The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has set up a National Water Safety Committee, with which the Government are associated. It is the job of that Committee to try to co-ordinate activities.

Mr. Turton: In defence of Yorkshire and Lancashire, will the hon. Gentleman realise that they have a coastline, whereas London has not?

Drainage Rates

Mr. Derek Page: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will include consideration of drainage rates in the terms of reference

of the Royal Commission on Local Government.

Mr. Crossman: I do not think that this is appropriate to the broad review which the Commission will be undertaking.

Mr. Page: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this type of rate is a particularly irksome burden to many ratepayers in East Anglia, particularly those who live in low-lying areas and who must pay rates to get rid of water which flows on to their property free of charge from the higher areas?

Mr. Crossman: When my hon. Friend has heard the statement which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will be making, he will appreciate the correctness of my first reply.

Sir D. Glover: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider having another inquiry into this problem of drainage rates, because there is here an anomaly which causes a grave sense of injustice to be felt in other parts of the country as well?

Southern Outfall Sewerage Works

Mr. Wellbeloved: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will make a statement on future plans for the Southern Outfall Sewerage Works, in view of the proposed development of the Woolwich-Erith Marsh site.

Mr. Mellish: Extension of the sewage treatment works is a matter for the Greater London Council. It owns about 700 acres of land which is allocated in the development plan for this purpose. I understand, however, that it is willing to release some of this land for use in connection with the Woolwich-Erith development.

Mr. Wellbeloved: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a possibility of an extension of the Southern Outfall Sewerage Works and that this is causing very grave concern? Will he use his influence to persuade the Greater London Council not to extend the sewerage works next door to a housing development of this magnitude?

Mr. Mellish: Yes, Sir, and I will call a conference to try to settle these difficulties.

Rating Act, 1966

Mr. Hunt: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what representations he has received from municipal treasurers and others on the working of the Rating Act, 1966; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Crossman: One Yorkshire treasurer wrote to me on hearing about the hon. Gentleman's Question.

Mr. Hunt: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have no influence on that particular gentleman? Is he also aware that many people are feeling that this Act is riddled with anomalies and is throwing an immense administrative burden on local authorities?

Mr. Crossman: I am grateful to the treasurers who collectively help me a great deal, particularly with regard to the issuing of an admirable booklet of simplification. I think the Act is working very well indeed.

Mr. Rippon: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are cases being cited of people who would really be entitled to relief but who are not getting it because they are out of time? Will he consider some action to put this matter right?

Mr. Crossman: I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned that. The answer is, "Yes, Sir". I am considering this matter and am asking treasurers to realise that in this first period a certain latitude would be legitimate.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA (NUCLEAR GUARANTEE)

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister what progress has been made on the proposal that India should be given a nuclear guarantee.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): This and related matters are still under consideration by the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee at Geneva, Sir.

Mr. Marten: As the Prime Minister seems to be obsessed with the idea of putting our nuclear deterrent into an

Atlantic Nuclear Force, will he give an assurance that he will retain independence over a substantial part of Britain's nuclear deterrent so that, when the time does come to give India a collectivised nuclear guarantee, Britain will be able to play a substantial part in that?

The Prime Minister: We hope that there will be a collectivised guarantee possible, not only for India but for other non-nuclear Powers. I am glad to see that the hon. Gentleman is now beginning to accept the principle of collectivised nuclear policies rather than the so-called independent ones which he used to support.

Mr. Rankin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it would seem, on the surface at least, that a guarantee to India of nuclear protection does involve a breach of my right hon. Friend's own policy of not spreading nuclear weapons?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. It is an essential part towards it, because at the Geneva conference Mr. Kosygin proposed a useful initiative, namely, that nuclear Powers would give an undertaking not to use their nuclear weapons against non-nuclear States. In Moscow recently we pressed Mr. Kosygin to agree that this should be extended to the point where there could be guarantees by nuclear Powers to non-nuclear countries in case they were attacked by some nuclear countries.

Mr. Heath: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean by "collectivised" that this would be an international agreement but that the nuclear deterrent would remain under national command?

The Prime Minister: We would have to work out the details for the Pacific, but, as I have said before, it would mean that we would have a collectivised nuclear guarantee and, from the point of view of this country, we intend to collectivise our nuclear position, whether in the Atlantic, Pacific or anywhere else.

Mr. Heath: I am afraid that that answer does not have the Prime Minister's usual clarity. Three times he has used the word "collectivised". I ask him to explain what "collectivised" means.

The Prime Minister: I thought that it was clear. I will make it clear. We have made it plain in Europe, and this applies


everywhere else, that we do not intend to preserve the myth of the independent deterrent, and that it would be part of a collective security agreement with no pretence at independent national status. I hope that it is now clear. If it is not, I will try to explain it again.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN FREE TRADE ASSOCIATION AND EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

Mr. Farr: asked the Prime Minister if he will arrange for early talks with the European Free Trade Association designed to establish a basis for a trading partnership with the European Economic Community.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Member to the statement made to the House on 16th May by my right hon. Friend the First Secretary of State.

Mr. Farr: Is the Prime Minister aware that it is possible that the necessary safeguards relating to our sovereignty, Cornmonwealth and home agriculture may well make it impossible for this country to join the E.E.C.? Would he not, therefore, agree that it would be better to concentrate on establishing a free trade area, thereby giving our manufacturers the chance to have a larger home market without the political drawbacks which are associated with it?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman may be aware that at Vienna about a year ago we proposed that there should be an approach by E.F.T.A. to the E.E.C. to discuss what bridge building there might be between the two blocs, not excluding the kind of arrangement the hon. Gentleman has in mind. I think that he is really talking about a variant of the Munchmeyer plan, but this does not preclude—[Interruption.]—we think that it would be unsafe to reply on the sort of thinking the hon. Gentleman has in mind. What we are doing is to have direct probing to see on what conditions Britain could join the E.E.C., and other E.F.T.A. countries as well.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMONWEALTH PARLIAMENTARY LINKS

Mr. Farr: asked the Prime Minister what plans he has for promoting greater unity and understanding within the Com-

monwealth through the creation of a fur-their Parliamentary link.

The Prime Minister: As I have previously reported to the House, our proposal for a Commonwealth Parliamentary Assembly was discussed at the Meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers last June but did not secure enough support. For the moment I think the best course is to rely on the developing work of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

Mr. Farr: Has the Prime Minister noted the success which has attended the meetings of the European Assembly at Strasbourg? Does he not agree that a Commonwealth Parliament on similar lines would serve a far more useful and valuable purpose?

The Prime Minister: It was the success of the Assembly at Strasbourg which led some of us, when we were on the opposite side of the House, to make this proposal for a Commonwealth Parliamentary Assembly. This was proposed by Her Majesty's Government at the last meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers last summer in London, but I regret to say that it did not get the general support of our Commonwealth colleagues. Indeed, I doubt if half those there were prepared to support our initiative.

Oral Answers to Questions — VIETNAM (AUSTRALIAN TROOPS)

Sir C. Osborne: asked the Prime Minister if he will give details of the consultations he has had with the Australian Government with regard to an agreement about the number of British and Australian troops in the Vietnam war; what limits have been agreed as to the number of troops that will be so engaged; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: No such consultations have taken place.

Sir C. Osborne: Is not this a shockingly bad example of Commonwealth cooperation? If more Australian troops are to be engaged in the Vietnam war and they appeal to us for help, would it not be difficult for us to say no to them? Would the Prime Minister say what he can do through political means to get this war ended?

The Prime Minister: Commonwealth co-operation does not mean that we all


do the same things. The essence of the modern Commonwealth is that Australia is sovereign and, in the exercise of that sovereignty, it has troops in Vietnam. We are equally sovereign and, in the exercise of our sovereignty, we do not have troops in Vietnam. I do not see that as a problem between us and Australia. In regard to attempts to get a political solution, I have many times expressed in this House what our policy is, and I have quite often had the support of hon. Members opposite.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Has not my right hon. Friend underlined his support for and approval of this war by advising Her Majesty The Queen to issue a medal for award to Commonwealth Australian and New Zealand troops? Is this not a recommendation against the wishes of the Australian Labour Party?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend seems to be living in the pre-Statute of Westminster age. The advice given to Her Majesty about medals for troops is uniquely a matter for the Australian and New Zealand Governments. We have no power to intervene, and it would be an odd concept of the Commonwealth if we did.

Oral Answers to Questions — MILITARY OPERATIONS, EGYPT (OFFICIAL HISTORY)

Mr. John Lee: asked the Prime Minister if he will commission an official history of the operations in Egypt in 1956.

Mr. Michael Foot: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement to the House on the compilation of an official history into the military operations in Egypt in 1956.

The Prime Minister: I do not think this is the right way of dealing with the situation, Sir.

Mr. Lee: Does not the Prime Minister agree that it is normally the practice to have an official history of a war? Should not this apply to an illegal war, even though it may be too late to punish the people responsible? Is it not time that this whole matter was cleared up?

The Prime Minister: The purely military aspects of the campaign were fully recorded in the despatches by the then commanding officer. It is a fact that

recently published in more than one country authoritative works, memoirs and so on, have made it pretty plain that all we were told ten years ago about this operation was extremely misleading. Indeed, there is now strong prima facie evidence of the whole thing being a put-up job in advance of the fighting we were supposed to intervene to stop. I do not believe that an official history would be the way to deal with the situation. It can be dealt with only by hon. Members opposite giving the House the facts.

Mr. Foot: Regarding these recent publications, can the Prime Minister say whether the British Government have made representations to secure excisions from the recently published memoirs of General Dayan, the commander in charge of the Israeli Forces, or whether those excisions were made on the representations of those who participated in the original collusion?

The Prime Minister: There have been no representations made either to the Israeli Government or to General Dayan to cut out parts of his original memoirs relating to the very serious things to which I referred a few moments ago. The Government have no official knowledge of any such pressure.

Oral Answers to Questions — FIRST SECRETARY OF STATE (SPEECH)

Mr. Ridley: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech of the First Secretary of State on 6th May in Stockholm about European unity represents Government policy.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer I gave on 12th May to a similar Question by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond).

Mr. Ridley: In that case, is the Minister aware how welcome it is to many of us in this House to know that the Government now accept and do not question the institutions of the Treaty of Rome?

The Prime Minister: My right Friend in his speech, as in every other one he has made and which every one of us has made, dealt with the situation of our willingness to join the Common Market provided we can get satisfactory assurances both within the Treaty of Rome


and decisions made under it to satisfy British interests, and this was emphasised at Stockholm once again by my right hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED STATES LOANS

Sir C. Osborne: asked the Prime Minister what consultations he had with President Johnson about further United States loans in case sterling needed further support; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: None, Sir.

Sir C. Osborne: Does the Prime Minister agree with the statement of the Minister of Labour that it is a disgrace to our country to be living on loans from America which is making us slothful and idle? Would it not be better to refuse further foreign loans and to make our nation face the economic perils?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. That is what we are trying to do. The loans which were first raised in 1964 before we came into office have now been partly paid off, including part of the loans raised by right hon. Gentlemen opposite. In fact, the total borrowings over this period were rather less than the size of the deficit which we inherited. [Interruption.] All right, I agree that it does not matter which side; all of us have a duty to put this country into a sufficiently secure posture to pay our way.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS (SELECT COMMITTEES)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister if he will take steps to alter the procedure of the House so as to diminish the power of the Executive in regard to membership of Select Committees.

The Prime Minister: The procedure of the House is for the House to determine, but if my hon. Friend has any particular suggestions to make I would be happy to look at them.

Mr. Hamilton: I have plenty of those. Can my right hon. Friend justify the system by which the Executive takes upon itself the right to appoint back-bench Members on Committees which are themselves appointed to investigate the Execu-

tive itself? Can he justify the Executive's right to appoint back-bench Members to Committees which are essentially back-bench Committees discussing matters of importance to the House itself?

The Prime Minister: This, together with other questions, can be considered in the discussions we hope shortly to be having, but I should have thought that one of the very strong prima facie cases for the present situation is that as a result of the system which my hon. Friend condemns, he has been a very successful Chairman of the Select Committee on Estimates.

Mr. Rankin: Would my right hon. Friend not at least agree that in a democratic assembly like ours—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—of course it is—we ought to have some say in the election of our own Select Committees?

The Prime Minister: This is an idea which, of course, the House is perfectly free to consider and resolve on if it so decides, but I think the House knows the basis on which not only Standing but Select Committees have been appointed for many years past. If the House feels that there is a strong case for reviewing it, we have plenty of machinery for reviewing these ideas and taking action upon them.

Mr. Heath: Can the Prime Minister tell us when he and his colleagues will have had sufficient time to think out the ideas for Parliamentary reform which he told us were urgent five weeks ago?

The Prime Minister: Yes, we are about ready now. It was right that we should give considerable thought to this, having raised the matter, and we shall be ready to discuss it with the right hon. Gentleman at any time now. Naturally, in view of the importance of the subject, we shall not press him for an answer in the first five minutes. The right hon. Gentleman knows that on other important matters of Parliamentary reform we have been waiting for answers from him for a very long time.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER (SPEECH)

Mr. J. E. B. Hill: asked the Prime Minister whether he will place in the Library a copy of his public speech on the


Government's agricultural policy at the National Farmers' Union dinner on 6th April.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Hill: Since the Prime Minister is reported to have recommended a willing partnership between the Government and the industry, will he see to it in future that Treasury and other Ministers become better informed about agricultural matters generally and do not devise proposals such as the Selective Employment Tax which plainly reveal a lack of the understanding which a partner ought to have?

The Prime Minister: No one could be better informed on these questions than my right hon. Friends, and particularly my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The particular point which the hon. Member mentioned was pretty fully debated in this House on the Friday after the Budget, and it was the subject of a further statement by my right hon. Friend which, I think, gave pretty general satisfaction.

Oral Answers to Questions — DRUG ADDICTION

Mr. Deedes: asked the Prime Minister what machinery exists to coordinate the activities of the Home Secretary, the Minister of Health, the Secretary of State for Education and Science, and the social services in action against drug addiction in Great Britain.

The Prime Minister: The normal arrangements for interdepartmental coordination function in this as in other fields, Sir.

Mr. Deedes: Is the Prime Minister satisfied with the work which is being done by the Government Ministries on this important subject? Is he aware of the very profound alarm felt in many social circles about the spread of drug addiction? Does he know how many schoolgirls in this country are addicted to heroin today?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman, who had, I believe, experience in the Home Office, knows some of the complications here, because there are so many Departments which must be

concerned—the Home Secretary for regulating the possesion of dangerous drugs; the Ministry of Health for treatment; the Secretary of State for Education and Science for education in the schools. It is always difficult to get the right division of responsibility. I think that we may have to review the present situation as to departmental responsibilities when we have had time to study the recommendations for new controls over dangerous drugs—when we have made decisions on this on the recommendations made by the Brain Committee.

Mr. Doughty: Will the Prime Minister ask the Minister of Health for the information which he has regarding the grossly excessive prescribing of drugs by some doctors for young people who ought not to have any drugs at all?

The Prime Minister: I take it that the hon. and learned Gentleman is here referring to dangerous drugs—those coming within the purview of the schedule. My right hon. Friend is in full possession of this. He has announced in the House already that we are now accepting the Brain Committee's recommendations to set up an Advisory Committee. This is one of the questions which I think will have to be considered by that Advisory Committee.

SOUTH ARABIA

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Sir ALEC DOUGLAS-HOME: To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement about South Arabia.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will now answer Question No. Q19.
Yes, Sir. Following the letters exchanged between the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and myself last week talks have been held between Government and Opposition representatives.
I welcome the opportunity given by the right hon. Gentleman's Question to clarify the position.
On 10th May I answered two Questions about the attitude of the South Arabian Government to the decisions announced in the Defence Review. I


quoted, correctly, the statement of Sultan Saleh about the decision to leave the Aden base in 1968. That statement made on 10th March represented, I believe, the considered view of the South Arabian Government.
Subsequently, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), whose inability to be present today, for very good reasons, he has explained to me in a letter, published a document he had obtained which gave the text of the statement made by Sultan Saleh at an earlier meeting with my noble Friend Lord Beswick, following my noble Friend's statement to the Federal Supreme Council informing them of the decision which was to be published in the Defence White Paper. The strong reaction of the Supreme Council embodied in that statement was much qualified in the course of the meeting, and I am satisfied that the words I quoted from Sultan Saleh's public statement fairly represented their considered position on the decision to withdraw from the base.
My Answers did not deal with another question on which the South Arabian Government have expressed deep concern—and are still concerned—namely, the decision not to offer a new defence treaty, for the reasons that I have explained to the House. The representations of the Federal Government on this question had already been given to the House by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies on 7th March. In the supplementary questions I answered on 10th May I was dealing with their reaction to the decision to leave the base, and, certainly, if I had been asked, would not have withheld from the House the fact that the South Arabian Government were distressed about the question of the defence agreement. I believe that part of the confusion has been caused by the fact that the statement published by the right hon. Gentleman covered both issues.
As the House knows, representatives of the South Arabian Government are now in London for discussions about the extent to which we can help them to strengthen their own defence forces.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I am sure that the House will have listened with interest to that explanation and to the distinction which the Prime Minister has drawn be-

tween the base and the defence treaty. Is not the Prime Minister aware that the only interpretation which the whole House could put upon his words of 10th May was that the Federal Government of South Arabia had readily acquiesced in the British withdrawal from Aden? There was no other possible interpretation. Why, when the true position was so easily ascertainable, did he, and then, even worse, the Foreign Secretary three days later, give the House an account which was neither accurate nor balanced?

The Prime Minister: The House was given a fully accurate statement. The right hon. Gentleman stressed just now the decision to leave the base, not the question of the future defence agreement. On that point, the House was told that this was the considered view of the Federal Government.
Perhaps it might help the right hon. Gentleman to follow what happened if I tell him that after my noble Friend made the statement which provoked the reaction which occurred in the document published by the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), the members of the Federal Supreme Council, in that same meeting, asked us if, when we published the Defence Review, we would make it clear that we were leaving the base after consultation with the Federal Council.
That, I believe, is full support for my correct statement—and I quoted Sultan Saleh in this connection—that the members accepted our decision to leave the base. They were, in fact, trying to get virtue from that decision by the quotation I have just given the House.
The other question, about the unwillingness of the Government to agree to a defence agreement, was not the question put to me in the supplementaries. It had already been frankly conceded to the House by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on 7th March.

Mr. Shinwell: In this controversy reference has been made to a document published by the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys). Can my right hon. Friend clear up the mystery? Has he any information as to how this document got into the hands of the right hon. Gentleman?

The Prime Minister: No, I have no information at all; but I do know that over the last 18 months, when we have


had this extremely difficult situation in Aden, where we have had to deal with the feelings not only of the Federal members, but also of the Aden population itself, which some right hon. Gentlemen seem to dismiss out of the reckoning altogether, we have had the clear fact that certain right hon. Gentlemen have been in very close touch with certain groups and individuals in South Arabia and have done nothing but harm to what we have been trying to do.

Mr. Heath: If the Prime Minister will refer to the Written Answer given by his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies on 9th March, 1966, he will find that the hon. Lady made no reference whatever to the question of a defence agreement. She referred only to the question of the Aden base in the same words that the Prime Minister declares that he did. Therefore, were it not for the issue of the statement by my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) the whole House would never have known the real circumstances of this case.

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend said, amongst other things, that
the Federal Supreme Council asked for an assurance that the British Government would continue to defend the Federation against external aggression and internal subversion until it was ready to do so itself".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 436.]
This was on 7th March. The right hon. Gentleman just said that my hon. Friend made no such reference. I said earlier that she had made such a reference. The right hon. Gentleman said that she did not. I have just read out the reference in that statement.

Hon Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Heath: I immediately withdraw that, because I thought that the Prime Minister said 9th March, and it was that statement to which I was referring. Of course I withdraw.

Mr. Thorpe: Would not the Prime Minister agree that the dismay of the Supreme Council at our refusal to grant a defence treaty must colour its opinion on our decision to withdraw troops?

The Prime Minister: As I have said, I think that part of the difficulty has

arisen from the fact that the document published by the right hon. Member for Streatham covered both points. This was the Supreme Council's first reaction to my noble Friend's statement. Following a whole day of discussions, as I understand, it accepted the decision to leave the base. It asked, in a way, to be able to take some part of the credit for that decision, but that was impossible because the Defence Review had already gone to print; but the members continued to express deep concern about our decision not to give them a further defence agreement.
I explained to the House last week why we could not do that—because this would mean that we would have to set up a corresponding base a little further along and then this would be just as costly and damaging as if we stayed in the base itself.

Sir J. Eden: Is the Prime Minister aware that his dialectical posturing, though typical of him, is most unworthy of anyone holding the office of Prime Minister? Is he further aware that what concerns most people in the country is not so much the double-talk we have come to expect from him, but the fact that he has handed on a plate great advantages to President Nasser, of Egypt, at the expense of this country's interests?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman feels better after that, it is about worthy of him. If he cannot understand the difference between the two subjects with which I was dealing, the decision to leave the base and the defence agreement, then he is in no position to make comments on this matter.
If the hon. Gentleman is talking now about the general decision to leave the base, I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was a group of people around himself who put such pressure on his own Government in those years that they created a situation which made life intolerable for Britain in the Middle East for 10 years afterwards.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Does my right hon. Friend realise that there is deep resentment on this side of the House against the efforts being made by certain hon. Members opposite to prevent a realistic agreement being reached?

The Prime Minister: All the problems which we have in that area today—no one on either side of the House will underrate them—go back a number of years. They go back to the decision some years ago, a debatable decision. to lump together the Federal territories and Aden itself. Our difficulty in the last 18 months, and that of our predecessors before then, has been to handle the situation in which there is such tremendous pressure in Aden itself. I believe that some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, including one who has left the House, have preoccupied themselves entirely with the interests of the Federal Rulers and have not paid enough attention to the problems of Aden itself.

Viscount Lambton: Will not the Prime Minister agree that the confusion which has arisen over this issue resulted from his not answering the question he was asked? On 10th May, the supplementary question I asked was whether there was not a changed set of circumstances in the Arabian Peninsula and could there not, as a result of this, be some form of guarantee for Aden? It was in reply to this that the Prime Minister quoted the opinion of Sultan Saleh and drew in the matter of the base which I had not myself mentioned. Is he now saying that Sultan Saleh did not want any sort of guarantee for Aden after independence?

The Prime Minister: I took the noble Lord's supplementary question—I think that I was justified, in view of the words he used on that occasion—to mean that there was a change in the circumstances there due to the announcement by President Nasser of his intention to stay in the Yemen. I took it that the noble Lord was saying: in view of that, would we now review our decision of two months earlier about the defence agreement?
Where the matter has, I think, led not only to confusion, but to controversy, has been in the fact that the document published by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham went right back to the first meeting and was not dealing with the change in circumstances since that meeting referred to by the noble Lord.

Mr. Michael Foot: Does my right hon. Friend think that it would be possible to have published a full White Paper giving the correspondence on this matter dating

back over the last few years? Shall we be able to have that before the Opposition put down their Motion of censure, if, indeed, that Motion ever comes off?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend and the House are in a very historical mood this afternoon. To get a full account of the problems which we face in South Arabia would require going back certainly to 1958, and many would say back to 1956. No doubt, if we are to debate the merits of this issue as opposed to the exchange of questions on 10th May, hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House will want to go back that far. If we are to have a debate on the particular subjects of 10th May, I agree that there will be some very interesting subjects which some of us will want to go into.

Mr. Heath: I have now had an opportunity to look at the reply of the Under-Secretary of State on 7th March as well as the one on 9th March. While it is true that she referred to the request for continuation of the defence agreement, she made no reference to the view of the Supreme Council that the British Government were dishonouring their obligations. This, in the light of the statement made last Saturday on behalf of the Supreme Council, is still its view, and it is this which the Prime Minister has tried to hide from the House.

The Prime Minister: I have not tried in any way to hide this from the House. My hon. Friend was asked what representations she had had. She gave the answer, and the representations made quite clear that they wanted a continuation of the defence agreement. It was only subsequently that, by means known only to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham, he received a partial statement of that meeting, and published it, which said that they considered that we had broken our agreement in not agreeing to a continued defence agreement.
This was an allegation which had been made several times in the House in March. It was fully debated in a two-day debate in March, it was fully rejected, and our case on it was fully stated from this side of the House. There has never been any suggestion that we were not prepared to reply to the allegation that we had broken the agreement.


We made clear the circumstances in which that agreement had been made and the fact that the conditions made under it had not be fulfilled.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister. Statement.

ROYAL COMMISSIONS ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT (MEMBERSHIP AND TERMS OF REFERENCE)

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement.
The House will recall that on 10th February I announced that the Counsellors of State acting on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen had approved the setting up of Royal Commissions to undertake a comprehensive review of local government in England and Scotland respectively.
I am now happy to be able to tell the House that Her Majesty has been pleased to approve the appointment of Sir John Maud as Chairman of the Royal Commission on Local Government in England and of the right honourable Lord Wheatley as Chairman of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland.
I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT the terms of reference for the two Commissions and the names of the other members.
When the House has had an opportunity to study the details, all hon. and right hon. Gentleman will, I think, agree with me that these are powerful Commissions on which we can place high hopes. I am sure that we all wish them well in their work.

Mr. Heath: We shall study the details when they appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT. In the meantime, will the Prime Minister tell us whether the terms of reference will allow the Royal Commissions to consider finances in relation to functions, and whether the term local government will include what is commonly known as regional government, including consideration of the regional councils and regional economic planning boards?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir; it will be within their terms of reference to consider regional forms of local government in addition to the existing ones and others which they may recommend. The Commissions are not precluded from considering questions of finance, though we are not asking them to make this the main subject of their inquiry.

Mr. Grimond: Would it not be better to give the Commissions a clear direction on the question of finance, which is absolutely fundamental to local government? I very much hope that it will definitely be included within the terms of reference. Second, will the Prime Minister say what is to happen to the existing Boundary Commissions which are, I think, now sitting and considering certain changes? Are they to be suspended or abolished, or what is to happen?

The Prime Minister: If it is, as the right hon. Gentleman says, fundamental to local government to consider finance, I am sure that the Commissions will be as capable of seeing that point as the right hon. Gentleman is. They will, therefore, include such financial considerations as they regard necessary for their work. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is pretty fundamental to it.
The Boundary Commissions are being wound up, as my right hon. Friend announced in February, but the Reports so far published by them and their unfinished work will be continued and, we hope, brought to finality by the work of the Royal Commissions.

Mr. English: Will the Commissions' terms of reference empower them to consider such functions of the central Government as might be better performed locally on a regional scale though not under existing local authorities?

The Prime Minister: The terms of reference will enable the Commissions to make any recommendations about the functions of the central Government which are appropriate to local government. It will not be within their terms of reference to decide how far there should be further decentralisation of Whitehall itself, but the Commissions will be free to consider existing functions and say how local government should best be organised to meet existing functions. The Commissions will be free


to make recommendations about changes of functions, including—though it would not be a central part of its report, I expect—any switch of functions between central and local government.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Is there any way in which the reports of the Commissions could interfere with the implementation of changed boundaries for constituencies likely to come into being in the next four years?

The Prime Minister: I can understand the hon. Gentleman's deep concern on these questions. These are Royal Commissions on local government. The question of the work of the Boundary Commissions is a matter for an entirely different Department of State and ultimately for action by the House.

Mr. W. Baxter: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a considerable body of opinion in Scotland is in favour of a certain amount of devolution? Will the Royal Commission for Scotland have the necessary power to consider setting up a parliament for Scotland? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] In view of the volume of opinion which seems to concur in that point of view in this House, will my right hon. Friend see that it is taken into consideration?

The Prime Minister: I am never surprised to see a coalition between my hon. Friend and the limited number of Liberals opposite, but that does not affect the terms of reference of the Royal Commission, which is to inquire into local government and not into the Act of Union and everything that has happened since.

Mr. Rippon: How long are the Royal Commissions expected to take to complete their work? In other words, how long is the ball to be kicked into the long grass? Secondly, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether local government reorganisation will still go on to a limited extent within the framework of the existing structure? A number of matters relating to rural and other areas are coming up at the moment. Will that work continue?

The Prime Minister: The Royal Commissions will report in certainly not much more than two years. Everyone

is agreed on the need for urgency, but this review will probably be the biggest review of local government this century and we must not underrate the importance or the thoroughness with which the job must be done.
With regard to the continuing work of local government reorganisation, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and I have made it clear that each case will be considered on its merits. My right hon. Friend will be free to go on with any appropriate cases, but when it comes to the broader issues and those which involve matters of deep principle, on which the Boundary Commissions have sometimes reached conflicting views, we would do well to await the reports of the Royal Commissions.

Mr. Ian Gilmour: Since the Royal Commissions may possibly recommend far-reaching changes, is it not plain that no piecemeal and footling boundary changes should take place in the interval?

The Prime Minister: I believe that we can make some useful changes on the basis, for example, of past Reports by the Boundary Commissions, but on the big issues of principle it would be better to await the reports of the Commissions. The work of the Royal Commissions will not stop all work on boundary changes in the interim. Where such changes are justified on merit, they will be carried out.

Mr. Rankin: May I return to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter)? Is the Prime Minister aware that, at one time, Berwick was under Scottish local government but that it is now under English local government? Can it be brought back to Scotland?

The Prime Minister: Boundary distribution and the history of this subject, while important and interesting, are not immediately relevant to the work of the Royal Commissions. That will be concerned with local government. If the Royal Commissions were to make any recommendations involving a change in national frontiers, that would raise the sort of questions referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin).

Mr. Gibson-Watt: The Prime Minister referred specifically to Scotland and England. I take it that Wales is included?

The Prime Minister: When the Local Government Commission for Wales reported, its recommendations were rejected by the last Government. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths) was appointed Secretary of State for Wales, he set up a working party composed mainly of officials to take a fresh look at Welsh local government. This has been undertaken in consultation with a cross-section of local authority opinion in Wales and it is almost completed. It is better that we await the result of its investigations before a decision is taken.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Bowden. Business statement.

Mr. Biffen: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. At Question Time I asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government, in Question No. 22, whether the Royal Commission on Local Government would be invited to consider the desirability of the rural borough provisions in the Local Government Act, 1958. The right hon. Gentleman referred me to the Prime Minister's statement that was to be made at the end of Question Time. I therefore did not have an opportunity to put a Supplementary Question to the Minister. Would it be in order for me now to have the opportunity to put one to the Prime Minister?

Mr. Speaker: This is difficult. The hon. Gentleman did not rise when I called him to put his supplementary question during Question Time. He rose later when I was passing from that Question. I cannot call everyone who wishes to put questions on local government issues like this, for so many hon. Members have interests. However, in view of the exceptional circumstances, perhaps the hon. Gentleman may be allowed to put his supplementary question.

Mr. Biffen: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does the Prime Minister recognise that the future of the rural boroughs, especially as conceived in the Local Government Act, 1958, is considered by many people to be a matter of great import-

ante? Will he, therefore, represent to the Minister of Housing and Local Government the desirability of not endorsing any proposals from, for example, Shropshire County Council, to merge into a large local authority unit existing boroughs whose future should be the subject of wider consideration by the Royal Commission?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman has put one point of view and, of course, there are others. I am sure that we should leave this matter to the Royal Commission to make any recommendations upon.
On the particular issue raised in the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question—about action which may or may not be taken by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government—both my right hon. Friend and I have said that he will proceed in a very limited number of cases where the position is clear. If the hon. Gentleman has any particular question in mind, perhaps he will put it to my right hon. Friend.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose——

Dame Irene Ward: May I put a question, too?

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is what makes me almost repent my generosity.

Following is the information:

The terms of reference for the Royal Commission on Local Government in England are:
To consider the structure of Local Government in England, outside Greater London, in relation to its existing functions; and to make recommendations for authorities and boundaries, and for functions and their division, having regard to the size and character of areas in which these can be most effectively exercised and the need to sustain a viable system of local democracy.

The names of the members are:

Sir John Maud, G.C.B., C.B.E. (Chairman).
Mr. J. E. Bolton, D.S.C. (Vice-Chairman).
Mr. V. G. H. Feather, C.B.E.
Sir Francis Hill, C.B.E.
Mr. J. L. Longland.
Mr. A. H. Marshall, C.B.E., Ph.D.
Mr. Peter Mursell, M.B.E., D.L.
Mr. Derek Senior.
Dame Evelyn Sharp, G.B.E.
Mr. T. D. Smith.
Mr. R. C. Wallis, J.P.

The terms of reference for the Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland are:
To consider the structure of Local Government in Scotland in relation to its existing functions; and to make recommendations for authorities and boundaries, and for functions and their division, having regard to the size and character of areas in which these can be most effectively exercised and the need to sustain a viable system of local democracy.

The names of the members are:

The Right Hon. Lord Wheatley (Chairman).
Miss M. B. Harvie Anderson, O.B.E., T.D., M.P. (Mrs. J. F. P. Skrimshire).
Mr. Henry Ballantyne, D.L., J.P.
The Right Hon. Thomas Fraser, M.P.
Mr. A. L. Imrie, C.B.E.
Mr. D. R. Johnston, M.P.
Mr. James McBoyle, C.B.E., D.L.
Mr. H. T. MacCalman.

One further Member will be appointed shortly.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Herbert Bowden): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a short business statement.
On Thursday, instead of the Second Reading of the Local Government Bill, there will be consideration of Her Majesty's most Gracious Message and of the Motion to approve the Emergency Regulations.
Then, in addition to this business and the Orders already announced, Motions on the Double Taxation Relief (Sweden) Order, and the Sunday Cinematograph (Bishop's Stortford) Order.

FINANCE BILL (FRIENDLY SOCIETIES)

Mr. Graham Page: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your guidance on the Finance Bill, which is set down for Second Reading tomorrow, and, in particular, on Clause 27(1,a), which singles out a very small number of friendly societies for special and, I must say, unfavourable treatment?
As the House knows, if a Bill
… affects a particular private interest in a manner different from the private interest of other persons or bodies of the same category or class …"-[OFFICIAL REPORT. 10th December, 1962; Vol. 669, c. 45.]

it must be subjected to procedure appropriate to Private Bills—that is to say, the publication of notices in the Press, the opportunity for presentation of petitions and the argument on those petitions. That was the Ruling on the issue made by your predecessor, Mr. Speaker.
This, I submit, is not a pettifogging point of procedure. If the whole of a class of persons or bodies is affected by legislation, it is right that their case should be argued by the representatives of the people in this House. If a Bill discriminates between members of that class and affects just a few private persons or bodies, then they have the right to argue their own individual case.
This has been recognised for the past 500 years and, in Standing Orders No. 38 and No. 224, we are directed in this House to carry out that procedure. These Standing Orders, as you will know, prevent the House from proceeding to a Second Reading of a Bill which contains private legislation until that Bill has been subjected to the procedures through which private legislation must pass.
It matters not whether that private legislation comprises the whole of the Bill, or whether, as in this case, it is one Clause in a Public Bill of 50 Clauses, the 49 other Clauses being public business. If the private business comes within an otherwise Public Bill, then the Bill is a Hybrid Bill and still must go through the process of private legislation. For example, there is a Bill before the House at present, The Post Office (Subway) Bill, which is a Public Bill introduced by the Government, passing through its normal stages in the House, and yet it is a Hybrid Bill against which Petitions are being heard.
Mr. Speaker, I do not have to ask you to decide this afternoon whether the Finance Bill is or is not a Hybrid Bill. I have to ask you to refer it to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, in accordance with the Standing Orders, because it is the Examiners in whom the House has vested the right to come to a decision on this point and to report to the House. All that I have to do is to satisfy you that there is a case for reference to the Examiners, and if the House will bear with me for one moment more I think that I can do so.
The position is that the Income Tax Act, 1952, Section 440, gave tax exemption to all friendly societies. Clause 27 of the Finance Bill limits and regulates this exemption, again in respect of all—and I repeat all—friendly societies. But it then proceeds to pick out certain friendly societies for special deprivation of rights. It describes them in Clause 27(1,a) as those which were registered after 31st December, 1957, and which entered into certain types of transaction in the three months between 3rd February and 3rd March, 1966. Transactions of that type have been entered into probably by all the other friendly societies registered before 1958, and it is only the date which is significant here, 31st December, 1957. The result of inserting that date in the Bill is, I am advised, to have a very grave effect on not more than half-a-dozen friendly societies out of a thousand or more friendly societies. It affects that half-dozen to the extent of putting them out of business as life or endowment insurance societies.
This is a once-for-all provision. It is not a provision against some future malpractice by friendly societies. What it says is that these half-dozen shall not in future carry on the business permitted to their thousand or more fellow societies, and they are not permitted to do that merely because they came into existence after a date 8½ years ago.
You will be aware of the precedents, Mr. Speaker, and if I may I will refer to them very briefly. They are set out on page 883 of Erskine May. The Railways Bill, 1921, was questioned as a Hybrid Bill. It was decided after discussion that it was not a Hybrid Bill because it affected all the main railways in Great Britain and not merely some of them. The Electricity (Supply) Bills of 1926 and 1934 were questioned. They escaped the provisions of a Hybrid Bill because they affected electricity undertakings of a particular class all alike, not discriminating against any particular undertaking. The Iron and Steel Bill, 1948, was questioned at some length, and it was finally decided that it was not a Hybrid Bill because its purpose—and I quote from HANSARD, Vol. 458, col. 52—was
to bring under public ownership all-important companies producing iron ore and certain basic

iron and steel products. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th November 1948; Vol. 458, c. 52.]
The phrase is "all-important companies".
It is clear that the basis of these decisions is that the Bills affected all persons or bodies of a substantial class and not, as in the case on which I am commenting, six out of a class of more than a thousand. A much closer precedent appears on page 884, the Canal Trust Bill in 1905, which was setting up a trust for all canals and which picked out a few canals for compulsory transfer to the proposed trust. That was a Hybrid Bill, and it had to go through the private legislation procedure. This is a much nearer precedent than any other to the six friendly societies out of a thousand.
I am not asking you, Mr. Speaker, to decide this question. I am asking you to say that I have shown a sufficient case for a reference of the Finance Bill to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) for letting me know, with his characteristic courtesy, the point which he has raised with equally characteristic Parliamentary skill and Parliamentary devotion.
The matter raised by the hon. Member for Crosby concerns perhaps one of the most difficult and complex points of the procedure of the House. It was right that he should submit it at length. Considerable difficulties often arise in determining the category to which Bills properly belong—whether a Bill introduced as a Public Bill so affects particular private rights that it should be referred to the examiners as a Hybrid Bill. I might remind the House of Mr. Speaker HyltonFoster's definition of what constitutes a Hybrid Bill. It is:
A public Bill which affects a particular interest in a manner different from the private interests of other persons or bodies of the same category or class.
That is on page 872 of Erskine May.
The authorities of the House have to examine all Public Bills from the quasi-judicial standpoint of whether, prima facie, private rights are affected, and if they are, the Members in charge of the Bill, irrespective of whether they are Government or private Members, are notified that private rights are affected


and the examiners are then required to make a report on the Bill before the Second Reading stage is entered upon.
In the present instance, the Bill has not been referred to the Examiners and the hon. Member is fully entitled to ask why. The answer to his submission depends on the definition contained in Clause 27(1,a), the Clause to which he was referring. This Clause—as the Chancellor explained in his Budget statement, reported in HANSARD of 3rd May, c. 1435 and 1436—deals with the tax exemption which friendly societies enjoy under Section 440(1) of the Income Tax Act, 1952.
Broadly speaking, the effect of the Clause is to take away this exemption from new societies—as defined in subsection (I,b)—and also from those old societies which did any single premium business in the three months ending 3rd May, 1966, as defined in paragraph (a). Old societies, with the exception of those defined in paragraph (a), will continue to enjoy their tax exemption so long as they do not enter into single premium business.
The hon. Member for Crosby submits that paragraph (a) makes the Bill prima facie hybrid, because its effect is to penalise only six out of more than a thousand old friendly societies and that the date has no particular significance in friendly society law or finance law.
After considering the definition contained in subsection (1,a) of Clause 27, however, I am satisfied that it comprises a certain class of friendly society which are to be treated in a uniform manner and, therefore, this must be treated as a public and not a Hybrid Bill.

ADJOURNMENT (WHITSUNTIDE)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House, at its rising on Friday, do adjourn till Monday, 13th June.—[Mr. Bowden.]

4.8 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot: There are a few considerations which I should like to put to the House before this Motion is passed. I fully realise that it is a serious inconvenience for the House when it has this discussion on the Adjournment for Whitsun or for other Recesses because the discussion is bound to interfere with the debate on the subsequent Bills. However, the arrangement of the business of the House is not my affair. I am not responsible for it. I am not one of the usual channels and I have no aspiration to become one. Therefore, if, unfortunately, the matter which is to be debated later—which I fully support —has to be debated somewhat later still because of my intervention and that of possibly some of my hon. Friends in this earlier debate, that cannot be helped.
There are some considerations which I believe the House should take into account before it passes this Motion and some undertakings which we ought to seek from the Government.
First, no one can deny that the House is debating the Motion for the Adjournment for the Whitsun Recess in extremely peculiar circumstances, circumstances which everyone in the House deplores and which affect the economy of the nation and arise from the strike situation. There are many of us on this side of the House who believe that the seamen have an extremely powerful case which has not been fully taken into account by the rest of the nation, or by the Government.
However, I understand that on Thursday we shall have a full opportunity to debate this situation. Therefore, I do not propose to discuss that matter, although if we had not had Thursday's debate on the emergency powers, it would have been necessary to discuss the seamen's strike very fully now. Indeed, there may be some hon. Members who take that view.
I hope that by Thursday the Government may have been able to take some further initiative to bring pressure on the shipowners in a manner which has not yet been brought upon them to make their


contribution to settling this extremely serious situation. That is why I propose to say on that subject only that we will have a full opportunity to debate the matter on Thursday,but that I hope that by then the Government and the shipowners will have taken sufficient action to enable a move towards a settlement to take place.
There are other matters which we would have every right to press and which some hon. Members may wish to press. There is the extremely serious situation in Southern Africa, the developments taking place with the talks with the Southern Rhodesian authorities. Nobody knows exactly what is happening in those discussions, nor do we know what is happening in the discussions with President Kaunda, of Zambia. I hope that before Thursday the Government will be able to make to the House a statement on this aspect of these matters. I realise the difficulties.
Personally, I cannot see that there is any possibility of a compromise between the Government here and the authorities in Southern Rhodesia. Our Government went to extreme lengths to make concessions before U.D.I., in November, and may have made further proposals since. But it would be quite wrong for us to go further. I am not making any suggestion that we should press that, but if the Government could give us a statement on that subject, it would be extremely helpful.
However, there is a further major reason why I have sought to discuss this Motion. It affects an issue which I believe to be of paramount importance throughout the world and which affects all the policies of the Government and the whole development of the world, a question about which there may be serious developments within the next two weeks while the House is adjourned. I refer, of course, to the situation in Vietnam.
At the beginning of this Parliament, many of us on this side of the House put down an Amendment to the Gracious Speech, because we did not support that aspect of Government policy and wished to state our view about it quite explicitly at the beginning of the Session. I must say that the intervening events have not allayed our qualms in any degree. All the statements we have had from the

Government, including the statement from the Foreign Secretary yesterday, which referred directly to events which might occur in the next fortnight, have been extremely unsatisfactory to many of us.
That is why we are right to press this issue now, partly because we think that the Government's attitude is unsatisfactory, but also because we think that fresh developments may take place in Vietnam during this period and that in the next fortnight it is possible, while the House is adjourned, that the whole tragedy of Vietnam will rise to its most dangerous climax.
To substantiate what I say, I take the reply of the Foreign Secretary in the House yesterday to a question which I put to him. I asked him
whether the Government still support the bombing of North Vietnam by the American Air Force and whether they have sought to impose any limits on that bombing in the last few weeks apart from the earlier limitation the Government sought to the bombing about Hanoi and Haiphong.
The reply given by the Foreign Secretary was:
The position there is as it has been, and what we want to see is the end of all military activity by both sides in this war, but I do not believe that it is right, while one side refuses negotiations, to tell the other side that they should refrain from certain military measures. As to the extent of the bombing, we have been informed and are still informed by the United States that if there were any change in their policy in that respect we should be consulted first."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd May, 1966; Vol. 729, c. 14.]
I leave aside any argument as to whether the Government's position is as stated in that reply. What the Government have done is to give support to one side in its act of violence in Vietnam while denouncing acts of violence by the other side. That is the complaint of some of us.
However, I come to the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's reply which I have just quoted. If there is to be any change in United States policy in the scale of its bombing in North Vietnam, or carrying it nearer to the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong, or if the Americans were to decide greatly to intensify the bombing generally, the British Government would be consulted in either case. That is a clear reading of what my right hon. Friend said.
If that is the case, it is possible that in the next fortnight the British Government will be consulted about whether they agree with further measures to be taken by the Americans in Vietnam. Many hon. Members follow the extremely able reports which are given by the Washington correspondent of The Times who, only a week ago, was saying that the crisis of decision was arising in Vietnam, as he believed, and that it might be that within a very short period the Americans would be deciding either greatly to intensify the bombing, or to multiply their forces in Vietnam, or augment them greatly, that is, raising them from a figure of about 250,000 to 500,000. It is, therefore, quite possible that this decision will be taken by the Americans while the House is adjourned and, according to the Government's own statement to the House, the Government would be consulted before the Americans took any such step.
I would like the Leader of the House to tell us, first, whether I have accurately summarised the Government's view and that it is absolutely clear that if there should be such an intensification of the war, the British Government would be consulted. Secondly, I should like to know what will be the Government's answer when they are so consulted. We understand that their answer, when they were asked whether they would agree to the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong, was, according to the statement which they have made on numerous occasions, that they were opposed to that. Presumably, if that request is made by the Americans to the British Government again in the next fortnight, the Government will still say that they are as opposed to that as ever.
Of course, many of us are not satisfied by that. We want to stop the bombing of North Vietnam altogether, as one of the steps which we believe could possibly help to lead to the settlement we all desire. Therefore, we also want to know what would be the answer of the Government to the consultations which the Americans are pledged to initiate, according to this statement about the intensification of the bombing in Vietnam?
In all the reports appearing in the American papers, we are told that the American Government are considering

whether they should go in for a large, intensified, bombing campaign. Some of the reports indicate that the intensification of the bombing has already started, although that is difficult to square with the statement made by the Foreign Secretary to the House, because if there had been a great intensification of the bombing he would presumably have reported to the House and told us what was his attitude.
I hope that the Government are opposed to any such intensification, and that if they are consulted about it they would say no. Better still, I hope that they will take the initiative. In view of these discussions which are obviously taking place in the United States, and which may determine the whole outcome of the Vietnam war, and future development in South-East Asia, I trust that the Government will be able to tell us today that they are prepared to initiate discussions with the United States Government to impress upon that Government that we are opposed to the intensification of the war in that sense.
Before we agree to this Motion, we should get a statement from the Government which goes further than that given to us yesterday by the Foreign Secretary, although that statement, as I underline afresh, makes it quite clear that the British Government would be consulted if the American Government were to make a further intensification of the bombing of North Vietnam. As a result, this House and the people of the country are directly implicated in this affair. It is no good people saying that it is only the Americans who are involved. We now have the situation, which has been explained quite clearly to us by the Government, that we had made our intervention in such a sense that we have insisted upon the right to be consulted in certain circumstances. It might be that in the next fortnight the essential consultations will take place.
Let the Government tell us now. I believe that it would produce a heartfelt sense of relief throughout the country if the Government, before we depart for the Recess, said that they would not give their support to any intensification of the bombing, that they were looking for a different outcome to the war, and were not prepared to give full, complete, and unqualified support to American military


action, which has been the policy of the Government hitherto. If we could have such a change by the Government it would cause not merely a heartfelt sense of relief, but it would be a step towards securing the kind of settlement which everyone wishes to achieve.
There is another reason why this situation is so tense and why the critical decision about Vietnam may be taken within the next fortnight. That is due to the persistent developments occurring in South Vietnam, where a large part of the claims made by the Americans are dissipated. They are being destroyed by internal events there. We have been told by the Foreign Secretary that he bases his case largely on this aspect, as being a supporter of the elections which were to take place in South Vietnam some weeks ago. But a decision might have to be made within a fortnight as to whether there is any possibility of those elections taking place at all.
In The Times today its Washington correspondent indicates clearly how critical is this decision on the political aspect of the matter in Vietnam and how that might come to a head, as well as the military question, in the next fortnight. The report says:
Somehow Air Marshal Ky must be persuaded to honour his commitment to hold elections. This is seen to be the next step in what the State Department described as a continuing process of unifying the country, although few people have any idea of how they can be held during a war and under a Government that does not want them.
That is a report from Washington about the so-called next steps that have to be taken to implement the political policy in South Vietnam, to which Her Majesty's Government say they owe allegiance. The Foreign Secretary argues the whole of his case about Vietnam and the position there by saying that he supports these elections. We are told from Washington that many people are reaching the conclusion, which many here have reached, that it will be practically impossible to hold elections in this situation, under the present Government of South Vietnam—that is, elections which could be described as being anything like fair.
If that is the case, and that report certainly conflicts with the kind of indications which we have been given by the

Foreign Secretary, what is the basis for the Government's political standing in Vietnam? We are confronted with two combined factors. One may have further commotions in the next week or two, in which the present Government of South Vietnam will say that they are to take even more totalitarian powers than already exercised and, at the same time, the American Government are making up their mind whether they think that the only way to escape from this situation is to intensify the war by the exercising of their overwhelming air power.
Everyone would agree that this is an extremely dangerous situation, and not one which we can tolerate when we have no influence upon it. All of our own foreign policies depend upon a successful outcome here. Every possibility of reaching agreements in Europe or in the world depends upon getting peace in Vietnam. It is only when this cloud is removed that we will be able to see the rest of the international horizon at all. I therefore urge the Government to say that they will play the very fullest part in these consultations. We would like them to make their demands in public, and I hope that they will do so in the not too distant future. If they find that this is not possible, at least let the Government make the maximum representations in private. The time will have to come, very soon, when they will have to make the declaration in public. Let the Government be under no misunderstanding about the situation. The strength of feeling on this side of the House is very powerful indeed.
I have never said that I questioned the motives of the Prime Minister, or the other members of the Government, in their desire to secure a peace in Vietnam.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying just a little into the merits of the matter rather than giving reasons why we should not adjourn for Whitsun.

Mr. Foot: I apologise, Sir. I will bring my remarks to a conclusion almost immediately. You have pulled me up at an awkward time, Mr. Speaker, when I was trying to say a world in favour of the Government. I never get a chance to do this; maybe I do not try hard enough. Anyhow, I have to abbreviate that part of my prepared remarks.
I do not question the motives of members of the Government. What I have always questioned, and what I believe growing numbers of people are questioning, is the correctness of the Government's policy for securing the end which they say they desire—a peace in Vietnam. This country is under-playing its hand. We could exercise much more influence in these affairs if we exerted ourselves.
I urge the Government, during these next two weeks—although they may have many other matters to deal with, such as the seamen's strike, Rhodesia, and other things which are bound to crop up—to place at the top of their agenda the search for how they can best use all their power and influence to secure peace in Vietnam, upon which the peace of all of us may depend.

4.29 p.m.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: I should like briefly to comment on the significance of the intervention of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot). Those of us who have been here some time know that it is not unusual for him to use the Motion on whether we should adjourn for one or other of the Recesses as the basis from which to launch an attack or to express a point of view which he sincerely holds. But the significance this time is that he has done it against his own Government. whose Whip he accepts. This means that he is delaying his own Government's business.
It is part of the Parliamentary system for hon. Members to try to delay their opponent's Government because they usually feel that what the Government are doing is not right. But we start by believing that members of the Governrnent side think that what the Government are doing is right and they do not use our procedures to delay the Government in doing what they are supposed to think is the right thing for the nation.
The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale referred to three things. He referred, in passing, to the seamen's strike. He said that what the Government were doing was not right, that they were not doing very well. He disagreed with the way in which they have intervened in the strike. He does not feel that they have

been strong enough with the ship owners. In the very brief reference which he made to the matter, he was satisfied that what his Government, whose Whip he accepts, were doing was not in the best interests of the country. He said that, if he has the chance to do so, he will enlarge on that theme next Thursday.
The hon. Member went on to the question of Rhodesia and South Africa generally and said that what the Government were doing was not right, that it was dangerous and wrong. Then he went on to his main reason for intervening in the debate. He pointed out how very wrong the Government's foreign policy was, how he disagreed with what the Prime Minister said, how he disagreed with what the Foreign Secretary was doing, and how he was satisfied that the alliance with America was not being used in the best interests of this country and the world. I cannot think of a more fundamental difference between a supporter of the Government, or a supposed supporter, and the Government, and I believe that cognisance should be taken of it.
The hon. Gentleman said that "powerful influences"—those were his words—felt the same as he did. That is significant, for this reason. We have just had a General Election. [HON. MEMBERS: "What was the hon. Gentleman's majority?"] There was only just a majority of three; it is 200 per cent. more than is absolutely necessary. We have just come through a General Election. We need not have had that election. The Government were not defeated in the House. There was no fundamental issue on which they had to go to the country for its support. The reason that we had the General Election, as explained by the Prime Minister, who used his power to call it, was that in the interests of the nation a Government with a majority of three were not capable of doing their duty or truly to represent the nation.
The right hon. Gentleman said, "If we go to the nation, and get our mandate strengthened by a bigger majority, we can act in the interests of this country with much more confidence and effect". So the right hon. Gentleman went to the country.
The Prime Minister has a majority of 97, or he is supposed to have a majority


of 97. Have the Government a majority of 97?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher): Order. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to address his remarks to the Motion on whether we should or should not adjourn for the Whitsun Recess.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: That is whole purpose of my intervention, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
It is in the best interests of the House, the nation and the Government that we should adjourn. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale and his colleagues should find out where they stand. I am arguing in their interests. They should not oppose or delay the permission which we are giving ourselves to go on holiday. They need a holiday. I am arguing that it is wrong to delay it.
I make this point in support of that contention. Have we a majority of 97? [HON. MEMBERS: "We?"] I talk as a Britisher. Have we, the British nation, a Government in power with a majority of 97? On paper, they are supposed to have such a majority. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale has disagreed with the Government on nearly all the fundamental issues. He has great power. I am certain that the Left-wing section of his party, which numbers 40 or 50, of which he is the accredited leader—[Interruption.] I should like to be certain that the Government feel that they have a majority of 97 and that this powerful influence, so critical, so different and fundamental——

Mr. James Tinn: On a point of order. We have listened to the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) summarising the speech of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) and the Government's motives in going to the country when they did and in assessing their support in the House. The relevance of this to the Motion seems to be very remote indeed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have already warned the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) that he must relate his remarks to the Motion. Whether the Government have a majority of 97 or not is not relevant to the Motion.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: I am arguing that the proper use of the Whitsun Recess can

decide whether the Government have an effective majority of 97. If, after the Whitsun Recess, this powerful section of the Government come back as muddled and critical of the Government as it is now, we shall not be able to tell the world that we have a stable Government with a majority of 97. The Whitsun Recess——

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Mr. Hugh Jenkins (Putney) rose——

Sir Harmar Nicholls: I am answering Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am justifying the continuation of my remarks.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have pointed out that the hon. Gentleman must confine his remarks to comments relevant to the Motion.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: I am certain that it is in the best interests of the House and of the critical Left-Wing section which opposes the Government that we should have a Whitsun Recess of at least 14 days. In the interests of the nation, we should give these hon. Members a chance to go to the seaside and to let some fresh air blow through their brains so that they can decide whether or not they support the Government. If they get in step with their own Government, it may well be that the Government can give the impression to the world that they are as stable as they have tried to claim. I oppose what the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale said. I believe that we should decide without any more ado to accept the Motion, so that we can all clear our minds about our duty.

4.38 p.m.

Mr. R. T. Paget: The hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) asked why this side of the House opposes the Adjournment. The electorate decided that hon. Members opposite were not fit to govern. From what we have seen of them, we have come to the conclusion that they are not fit to oppose. Therefore, this burden falls on us.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) that this is not the time when we should adjourn, but not primarily because of the situation in Vietnam. I do not agree with my hon. Friend on that matter, because I do not believe that we have any influence over what happens in Vietnam. We had great influence in Korea,


because we had a brigade there. It is a hard fact of life that we have influence where we have power and are exerting it. There are many pressures on President Johnson from people who have power in his party and within Congress, but in this matter we are impotent.
It may be, as my hon. Friend says, that there is an undertaking to consult us. Husbands quite often have consultative rights, but they know that they are on the basis, "You had better agree, because it will not make any difference anyway". Any consultative rights which we have concerning Vietnam are upon that basis, and it is no good "kidding" ourselves otherwise.
But the two issues on which I am unhappy are, first, the seamen's strike, and, secondly, the situation in Southern Africa. On neither of these issues has the Government's performance so far given me any great confidence in their ability to handle it. What concerns me is that these two continuing situations should go on, without Parliament being here to intervene and put its point of view.
I am not so far seeking to go into what the ultimate decision should be on the seamen's strike. I am concerned about the immediate handling of a continuing situation which is ruinous to the export prospects of the country. We probably all realise that the seamen are suffering, and have long suffered, from a grave injustice. Whether one compares them with the seamen of other European countries, or with comparable people in this country, whether in transport as a whole or in the Royal Navy, they are very much worse off. They are suffering from an injustice, and as an intermediary step, even if temporary, that should be corrected.
The theory that working men should accept injustice in the national interest is very old. It was the basis of Karl Marx's theory of progressive misery. In point of fact, it has been the militancy of trade unions, which for generation after generation have refused to accept that proposition, which has saved us over and again from the folly of economists and Chancellors. Over and over again, the thing which has prevented the economy from going into a deflationary slump has been the militancy of the trade union move-

ment, and I am inclined to think that we are sitting on this side of the House now because the militancy of our trade union movement prevented deflationary policies from succeeding last winter.
Now I see a situation in which a strike is being handled in a manner lamentably reminiscent of Baldwin in 1926. I see the shipowners' leader, Mr. Geddes, time and again basking in the approval of the establishment, as he demands unconditional surrender from men who have a just cause. I do not find that a happy situation in which to go on holiday and leave the Government. The Economist urges us that this has to be fought, to make an example and impose an incomes policy.
What do we mean by an incomes policy? I believe in an incomes policy where one has a planned economy and a just incomes distribution, but here is an incomes policy which is designed to maintain an unjust status quo.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not want to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman, but he must relate his remarks to the question whether or not we should adjourn.

Mr. Paget: With respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and in spite of the mumblings of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), I am doing exactly that. I am looking not at the ultimate issues here, but at the immediate issues. The situation that is evolving from day to day, and as we are leaving it, is a situation in which, pending settlement, the seamen are being asked to accept injustice. I shall not touch on the question of a long-term settlement, but I am examining the reasons why the immediate day-to-day situation doing great injury to the country is to be allowed to run on in absence of Parliament. I am devoting myself entirely to that.
If I am told that to deal with this matter on a temporary basis upsets the incomes policy, my answer is that it is not my incomes policy and that it is not an incomes policy which I support. I did not come here to support a Conservative Government pledged to maintain an incomes policy which was simply the status quo. As a party of Socialism, we are here to correct an unjust distribution of income, not to maintain it. To say that we cannot interfere with this strike,


because that might upset the existing and unjust incomes balance is not something which I can accept.
I did not come here to substitute for an upper middle-class Conservative Government a lower middle-class Conservative Government. That is not what I was looking for. If we are to have a socially just incomes policy, it must be a policy designed to change the balance of incomes, and it can only be achieved if we forget about our first priority being to maintain the £ and we bring our currency under public control.
I was deeply disturbed yesterday when the Prime Minister resisted the idea of a temporary subsidy. Why? If the position is that this is a matter of national concern, vital to the whole community, and the seamen are getting an unfair wage and the employers——

Sir Harmar Nicholls: On a point of order. I am not against free speech and extending the rules, but I feel that I was called to order when I was no further astray on the narrow terms of this Motion than the hon. and learned Gentleman is now.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am listening very carefully to what the hon. and learned Gentleman is saying. Provided that he relates what he says to the Motion before the House it is in order, but I must warn him that he is getting wide of the subject.

Mr. Paget: With great respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am saying that this situation with which we are dealing, a temporary situation, should be dealt with by a temporary subsidy.
I am disturbed about that being rejected as one of the things which should be considered in the negotiations that we shall leave when we go away on holiday. That is all that I am saying. If the seamen are getting an unfair wage and the employers, as they say, are getting an unfair profit—and this is a matter of the national interest, about which we are all concerned—why should we not pay for this benefit for which we are asking? That is what providing a subsidy means, certainly on a temporary basis, until the rights and wrongs of this are worked out.
After all, there is practically not a merchant navy in the world, except ours,

that does not receive a subsidy in one form or another.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hesitate to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman. He is entitled to give reasons why we should come back immediately after Whitsun. He is not entitled to debate the merits of the strike on this Motion.

Mr. Paget: With respect, I am simply asking why the question of a subsidy is being rejected as one of the possible means of settlement during these continuous negotiations. Within the transport industry, we pay very large subsidies to the railways and the canals. All our competitors abroad pay subsidies to their merchant navies. Why should a subsidy be excluded as a temporary method of getting our commerce flowing again?

Mr. Tinn: On a point of order. Surely this is disrespect for your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is an argument of the merits of a particular solution of the seamen's dispute. It has nothing to do with the Motion.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I will stop the hon. and learned Member when I feel that he has transgressed the limits of order.

Mr. Paget: I regret if this is an argument which is embarrassing to the Government's representative on the second bench. None the less, it is a valid argument and one which should be put.
The other subject on which I am deeply concerned, and on which I have been ploughing a lonely furrow, is the subject of Rhodesia. Here again, we have a continuing situation and one that worries me. If this situation turns to violence—and there is some indication that it will do so—it will become very unmanageable.
Bitterness has built up from the spectacle which appears to be that we are supporting a régime in Zambia which is infiltrating across the border armed bands of assassins and that from a radio, where we have put in boosters to cover Rhodesia the better, there is day after day going out incitement to murder, lectures on how to stab when only kitchen knives are available, on how to make petrol bombs, how to hamstring cattle and how to burn crops. That this should be going out day after day by means of instruments which are also used by the


B.B.C., produced with technical assistance from us, and that we should be there supporting it surely builds up amongst the people on lonely farms who have to fear sudden massacre the kind of bitterness which is unmanageable.
I very much urge that my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Commonwealth Relations Office who is out there should be sent special instructions—perhaps my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will tell us whether this can be done—that it must be made clear that these gangs are elements of Z.A.N.U. which was defeated in the battle of the townships by Z.A.P.U. and was driven out of the country by this other Nationalist party and then taken over by the Chinese in Tanzania.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have no doubt that all this is important, but it is really not relevant to the Motion which is before the House.

Mr. Paget: With great respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, this is a continuing situation. While we go on holiday, these organised and trained assassins are going out from a base with the vocal support of the President of a country whom we continue to support, finance and supply. I am not happy about going into recess while that is happening.
Here are two continuing situations which, whatever view one may take about them, have not been very happily handled by the Government. They are situations which Parliament should not go on holiday and leave alone.

4.54 p.m.

Mr. David Steel: I should like to raise one matter with the Leader of the House before we decide whether to depart for a fortnight. It is a comparatively minor matter compared with the subjects which have been discussed already, but it is none the less important.
At the time of dissolution of the last Parliament, several Bills were in process at various stages in the House. All but one of them have either been resumed in the present Parliament or are about to be resumed by the Government. The intervention of dissolution may have caused inconvenience in some cases, but it was not serious. For example, in the former Industrial Development Bill,

investment grants were to be effective from 17th January. That is still the case in the new Bill which is before the present Parliament. There was, however, one Bill which was in process in the last Parliament which shows no sign of reappearing in this Parliament, and that was the Private Member's Bill introduced by Mr. Humphrey Berkeley, the former Member for Lancaster, the Sexual Offences Bill.
We have had the Ballot for Private Members' Bills. It would appear that none of the Private Members who have been successful in the Ballot and who are near the top of the list are likely to take up that Bill. Regardless of whether we as individual Members are in favour of or opposed to the Bill, the position is that the House of Commons has already decided by a vote in the previous Parliament to change the criminal law, that the House of Lords yesterday completed the Committee stage of the same Bill and has decided that there should be a change in the criminal law but that, none the less, the criminal law is remaining unchanged.
It has been said earlier that the Government cannot provide time for this Bill. If we are finding time to depart for a fortnight's holiday, surely it is up to the Government to provide time or, at least, to guarantee that if a private Member were successful in getting the Bill passed under the Ten-Minute Rule, time would be found for it. Whatever view we take of this matter, it cannot be at all satisfactory for us to allow to continue a situation in which both Houses of Parliament have gone on record as requiring the criminal law to be changed but that, because of the Government's failure to provide time, it will remain unchanged.

4.57 p.m.

Mr. William Baxter: Before we agree to go into recess, I should like to know when the Government will give time to discuss the important question of the appointment of an arms salesman. I have endeavoured, by approaching Mr. Speaker direct, to get an Adjournment debate on this question. I have also asked my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House if he will allow time to discuss this important matter. Up to the present, however, it is a matter which has not had full investigation and


inquiry or, indeed, the support of the House.
It is an innovation from the general practice of a British Government to appoint an individual to do a particular job for private industry. In this case, we appointed an individual at £8,000 a year. Many questions still remain unanswered. Before we adjourn for the Recess, I should like to get answers to those questions.
What type of staff will this man be permitted to employ and what will be the maximum cost of such a staff? I am informed by letter from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that he will have an expense allowance, but what will be the amount of that expense allowance? We have known in the past that considerable sums can be involved in arms sales. There are many devious ways to achieve this object. Will this man have an unlimited amount of British capital with which to try to influence those to whom he seeks to sell arms, and will he be able to use that money as he feels inclined to do?
Will the armaments firms which receive orders as a result of this man's endeavours pay to the Government something on commission? Will this be a matter to which we will get an answer? What will the armaments firms subscribe towards the cost of this individual? I should like to know, even if no one else in the House wants to know, to which countries he will be selling the arms. Will it be Cuba, Russia, China, Formosa or South Africa, or what countries will be involved? Has he a free hand in this matter? Is there to be Government control by means of rules and regulations? Again, what type of arms will he sell? Will they be atomic weapons?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman can pursue this series of questions only if he relates it to the Motion before the House, which is whether we should adjourn.

Mr. Baxter: I appreciate that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. But, without posing the questions, naturally I cannot get any answers. The answers would enable me to decide whether or not to agree to the adjournment of the House for a fortnight. Last Thursday, I asked my right hon.

Friend the Leader of the House to give us time to discuss this matter. By a letter to Mr. Speaker, I have asked for an Adjournment debate in order to discuss it. I have been denied those things.
This appointment is a gross departure from all preconceived ideas of Government appointments. It is important, and I want answers to my questions. I should like to know, and I think that I am entitled to ask, if this individual and his staff are going to sell atomic arms. If they are, I am sure that the House would want to debate the matter before they are permitted to do so. If they are not to sell atomic arms, what type are they to sell? Are they to sell bows and arrows, pea shooters, or something like that? My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister indicated to me in a letter that it was to be armaments of defence. What are they?
At Question Time today I tried to ask a supplementary question, but I was not called. I think that the House should not adjourn for a holiday until I have an answer to the question which I was going to pose. It was on the general agreement that seemed to prevail in the House between hon. Members opposite and the Prime Minister himself on the undesirability of living on borrowed capital. In view of the fact that only a few days ago the House agreed to borrow £430 million from America at 4 per cent., I wanted to know why the general agreement now not to borrow did not prevail a week ago. It astonishes me.
Getting back to the question of the arms salesman, I am not against the principle of the Government having salesmen——

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is entitled to give illustrations of the questions that he would like to put if the House does not adjourn, but he cannot pursue the merits of the appointment of an arms salesman.

Mr. Baxter: I appreciate that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. But, presuming that the merits are good that the nation should appoint super-salesmen, I wonder if in the course of his reply the Leader of the House will consider the possibility of appointing a salesman for peaceful pursuits such as the sale of tractors and


fertilisers, which we were discussing last night.
Fertilisers are important, because we know the benefits that they bring to agriculture. Our balance of payments is much better because our farmers are able to produce more food. The reason for that is the excellence of our fertilisers. We discussed the subject last night with a view to helping our own farmers by means of the Fertilisers Scheme. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that we might appoint an international fertiliser salesman. That would bring about a greater amount of good by helping others to grow food in the parched lands of Africa and other areas of the world to feed the hungry.
I think that the innovation of an inter-rational salesman is a good one——

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. On this Motion. we really cannot debate the merits of appointing an international fertiliser salesman.

Mr. Baxter: I can appreciate that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, the idea cresents great possibilities, if I may say so.
To get back to the subject in which I am most interested, which is whether or not we rise for a fortnight's holiday without making decisions on the very important questions that some of my hon. Friends have raised, I contend that the question that I have posed about the appointment of this merchant of war, to which I have not received a satisfactory answer from the Government, is a matter which should be justified before the House rises. Up to the moment, there has been no evidence from the Government that a salesman of arms is necessary, desirable or morally correct. I would certainly deny the right of Parliament to rise without getting a satisfactory answer, or, at least, a debate on the matter.

Mr. Peter Bessell: When the Leader of the House announced that we were going to adjourn for 15 days for the Whitsun Recess, I said that it was not in keeping with dynamic, modern, progressive government, and a number of hon. Gentlemen on the Government Benches called out the word "hypocrite". I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot)——

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: How can the hon. Gentleman say that, because only a third of the Liberal Members are present in the Chamber? If they do not want to adjourn for Whitsun, why are not the rest of the Liberal Members in their places?

Mr. Bessell: I have heard of people leading with their chins, but the hon. Gentleman has done more than that. As I look round the Chamber, I see six Conservative Members present out of a total of 252. That is a powerful indictment of his own remarks, and I would say that it appears to me that the Conservative Party has already adjourned.
If I may return to the point of the Motion, I see that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) and other hon. Members on the Government side now share the view which I expressed when the Leader of the House announced the length of the Recess, namely, that in view of the many urgent matters confronting the country and confronting this House, it is quite irresponsible of the Government to suggest that we should take a 15-day holiday at this moment of time.
We have heard the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale referring to the situation in Vietnam, and I am bound to say that, in my view, whatever the merits or otherwise of his argument, no one can dispute that while that highly dangerous situation exists in South-East Asia, it seems incredible that the House of Commons should adjourn for a holiday of this length. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is not a holiday."] Hon. Members opposite say that it is not a holiday. I accept that many of us will be carrying out other duties in our constituencies, and I may say that, for my part, I am taking no holiday, either, because I shall be doing just that.
I am under the impression that I was elected to the House in order to serve here and deal with any issue of urgency that might arise. The points which have been made by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, the hon. and learned Member for Northampton and the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter) are valid. But there is one other issue which I would add to those which


have been raised, and it is the one which I mentioned when the issue first arose a week or so ago following the announcement by the Leader of the House about length of the Adjournment—namely, the Finance Bill and the Ministry of Labour Bill.
The Finance Bill has been delayed this year as a result of the General Election. I appreciate that there was no alternative. The fact remains that, having had a General Election, having had a Budget statement from the Chancellor and having now had a sight of the Finance Bill, it is a matter of real urgency that the House in Committee should get on with the business of debating the Bill and passing the necessary legislation to put it into effect.
More important still is the fact that we have yet to see the Ministry of Labour Bill, and I believe that it is irresponsible for the Government to suggest a 15-day Adjournment when the issue of the payroll tax, or the Selective Employment Tax, which will be the main part of the Ministry of Labour Bill, is causing so much anxiety and so much real worry to people throughout the country.
I would be ruled out of order if I were to attempt to debate the merits or otherwise of the payroll tax, but it is the fact that many people, including, for example, hoteliers in my constituency and throughout the holiday areas of this country, are in a serious dilemma with regard to part-time workers. They do not know, for example, whether there is any likelihood of the Government accepting amendments to their proposals which would enable part-time workers to be employed without having to pay the 25s. 0d. or 12s. 6d. a week payroll tax. This is not only causing hoteliers real concern and anxiety, but is preventing them from employing labour, and consequently lifting the unemployment figures artificially.
In addition, we have the problems of quarries, mining, and other industries, upon which no clear directive has yet been given by the Government. In these circumstances, these industries are in a state of mind where they do not know whether to promote investment, whether they will have to curtail the number of staff employed, and so on. These and various other issues are giving rise to

concern not only among managements, but among labour.
Whatever the merits of the tax may be, whatever arguments we may have to engage in either in the House itself or in Committee, the fact remains that it is wholly wrong, and, as I have said, wholly irresponsible, for the Government to propose a Recess at this time, when we have had the interruption of a General Election which has delayed the Finance Bill, when we have had an Easter Recess only a matter of a few weeks ago, and when we have so much urgent and vital business confronting the House, and consequently confronting the nation as a whole.
The uncertainties which have arisen as a result of the Chancellor's Budget statement must be cleared up as quickly as possible, and the same thing applies to the valid points which have been raised by hon. Gentlemen opposite. There are serious issues confronting not only the nation, but the whole world, and to suggest that we should go away to our constituencies, albeit to carry out important duties there, at a time when Parliament should be in session dealing with these matters, is, to my mind, something which the people of this country are not likely to forgive or to forget, and I therefore urge the Leader of the House to reconsider this matter and to think again before saying to the House, "You have two of three weeks' work. Now go off boys and enjoy yourselves".

5.14 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: I hope that when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House replies to this short debate he will give us certain assurances about the circumstances in which the Government will think it right to recall the House, and it seems, therefore, to be not inappropriate to make one or two points on that subject.
It is true that hon. Members on both sides of the House have a considerable backlog of undone work arising from as far back as the General Election, and that they will make good use of the time provided by this Recess, but this does not affect the other side of the picture, namely, that we shall not be here to keep an eye on what the Government are doing, and therefore it is incumbent on us to give a few brief instructions on how they should conduct themselves in our absence.
My hon. Friends have made one or two points about that. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) suggested that we have no right, during the Recess, to have any influence on what was going to happen in Vietnam, or to make any serious attempt to bring peace to that ravished country, because we do not Lave a brigade there. I remind my hon. and learned Friend that the United States had no brigade present in Suez in 1956, yet they made a substantial contribution to bringing that equally unfortunate debacle to an end.

Mr. Paget: The United States had her Sixth Fleet in and out of the landings. That was a power situation.

Mr. Jenkins: Indeed, and there is also a power situation so far as this country is concerned. We are not denuded of forces in various parts of the world, and my hon. and learned Friend cannot use Chat parallel effectively.
In furthering his argument, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton said that the House should not adjourn because of the situation in Rhodesia, but he seemed to be arguing the reverse in this case. So far as I understand him, the logic of his argument is that because we have no forces in Vietnam we are not entitled to intervene effectively there, but because we have no forces in Rhodesia we are entitled to intervene there. I suggest to my hon. and learned Friend that the logic of his argument is simply that we ought to have a brigade in Rhodesia. According to my hon. and learned Friend's argument, this would enable us effectively to intervene in that country.

Mr. Paget: I suggested that we ought to intervene to prevent organised murder gangs going from Zambia into Rhodesia. We have troops in Zambia. We have communications in Zambia. We have power there to intervene, but, much as we would like to intervene in Vietnam, we have no means of making our voice heard.

Mr. Jenkins: My hon. and learned Friend understands his own logic in these matters. Whether the House agrees with him is a different question; certainly I do not.
In spite of what has been said from both sides of the House, we are in all probability going away for about 14 days. This at any rate seems to be very likely, and I hope that when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House replies he will give us certain assurances as to the circumstances in which it will be thought right to recall the House. I believe that my right hon. Friend will say that, with regard to the seamen's strike, in certain eventualities he will recall the House. I hope that he will give us an assurance on that.
I believe that my right hon. Friend will say that if the situation in Vietnam were to develop in the unhappy way which my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) has suggested it might, he would think it right to recall the House.
My right hon. Friend can take it that as far as I am concerned, if the Government feel it right during the Recess to send a brigade to Rhodesia to preserve peace in that country, they will have my full support and that if they choose to recall the House on that issue, well and good, because it is an action which I think the Government will be entitled to take, and one which the people of this country are beginning to think they should take to ensure the preservation of human life, whatever the colour of a man's skin.
For all those reasons, I hope that when my right hon. Friend replies to this debate he will give us the assurances which I have suggested, along the lines which I have indicated to him.

5.19 p.m.

Dr. David Kerr: To prolong this debate might delay the Whitsun Recess itself. I have listened with interest to my hon. Friends dwelling on certain specific points which they feel might occasion the early return of the House. However, it is rather to the domestic scene that I want to draw my right hon. Friend's attention, namely, the difficulty which the House has in conducting its own business.
I am surprised that we are being invited—one might almost say seduced—to take a fortnight's rest at this stage in our Parliamentary history, and to leave aside the many pressing problems which we know exist at the moment, and to


leave aside, too, the many pressing problems which might burst on us within the next fortnight. Heaven knows that crises can arise in less than 14 days.
There is the pressure on Government time to which we in our turn have had our attention drawn time and time again. I am at a loss to understand why a fortnight's holiday is thought appropriate at this stage in our Parliament when we have not merely a programme of legislation to bring to the House, but a number of cobwebs to clear away upstairs in Committee.
It seems to me that a fortnight's invitation to holiday when there is so much housekeeping to be done is the very negation of good planning. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to advise the House that consideration will be given to the length of time that we devote to our Recesses. The time during which Parliament sits amounts to no more than 166 days out of 365. As a physician I am all in favour of that blessing which cardiologists call diastole—that moment when the heart ceases to pump and relaxes, ready for the next vital effort—but any heart which spends two-thirds of its time in diastole is failing.
There are growing arguments for the intervention of Government in the affairs of the nation, and for extending the time during which Parliament sits. With five years stretching ahead of us this is the first period of relaxation to which we are invited, and as an individual I hope to make good use of it. But I venture to suggest that from an institutional point of view those spacious and supine days are passing, and that Parliament can no longer afford the luxury of 200 days' Recess during the year.
Many people acquiesced reluctantly to the increase in our salaries, expecting us to earn those salaries by working for them. A few people outside thought we already worked for them. With the increase in salaries, the increase in pressure and the increasing demand of legislation there is no excuse for lengthy Recesses of this dimension. If we had a fortnight every three months, and perhaps even a little longer during the summer, it would be a splendid thing for many of us to go to our constituencies and relax and see something of our families, rather

than have the very long Recess which will shortly follow this fortnight's break. It is a matter of unfortunate timing.
If the programme of legislation which we have been told about is all ready to come before us, why is it thought appropriate to have a fortnight's rest so early in the history of this Parliament? If this legislation is not ready to come before us, I should like to know why. There has been plenty of time for the Parliamentary draftsmen to get on with the job. I hope that my right hon. Friend will have a close and critical look at the question of the length of Recesses. We have cut them down during the last 50 years but they still need a great deal of pruning and paring.

5.28 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Herbert Bowden): The Motion before the House is
That this House, at its rising on Friday, do adjourn till Monday 13th June.
That is precisely 10 Parliamentary days. In view of the fact that the Finance Bill will be late and the House may not be able to rise on 31st July—which would be the normal time for the Summer Recess—the Government thought it right that we should take the opportunity of a little longer Recess at Whitsun than is normal. I say "a little longer", because if we look back over the years we find that there have been practically an equal number of occasions on which there have been one-week Recesses and two-week Recesses respectively.
My hon. Friends have put forward a number of reasons why the House ought not to go away at this stage for a Recess of 10 Parliamentary days. They have mentioned certain happenings in this country and in the world generally. On the seamen's strike, I announced at Business today that on Thursday we shall debate the Message from the Queen and all the Regulations. This will be a full day's debate and will enable the House to ask detailed questions of my right hon. Friends, and a full discussion will take place on the strike situation.
Together with everyone else in this country, I am sure, I hope that long before we return from the Recess the strike will have been resolved. I can assure hon. Members that my right hon.


Friend the Minister of Labour will take every initiative in that direction. Should it be necessary during the next fortnight, because of the strike or any other matter, the House can be recalled under Standing Order No. 117, on representation to Mr. Speaker, and the Government will not hesitate to take that action.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) suggested that we should not rise because of the situation in Rhodesia. The House should be reminded that at the present moment, within the context of the terms and principles that have been clearly laid down by the Government, certain exploratory talks have started. I am sure that the House will agree that it would be undesirable to stay here and have a debate on Rhodesia during the time when those exploratory talks are taking place.
On 27th April my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made it clear that every effort is being made to ensure that nothing should be done at all, through publicity or otherwise, to endanger the success of these talks. They are difficult and critical. I am sure that the House will agree that we ought not to discuss Rhodesia while these very tricky negotiations are taking place.
On the wider question of Vietnam, not only the House but the whole country is extremely worried. We are horrified to read in our newspapers every morning of shootings and atrocities, and the loss of human life. This has been going on for a long time now. I should like to think that our staying here for the next fortnight and talking about it would help, but I am not sure that it would. The Government have an excellent record in this respect. They have taken every possible line to bring the conflicting parties together round the table. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has pointed out on more than one occasion, the Americans are quite prepared to withdraw their troops when it can be clearly established that real talks will take place which will enable peace to return to Vietnam on the basis of a Government that the South Vietnamese themselves want.
At Question Time yesterday my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary answered a number of detailed points on Vietnam, but the House should be reminded—and this does not apply to any-

one in the House—that some people in this country and in the world are much more concerned with victory for North Vietnam than with peace for the whole of Vietnam. I am sure that everyone in this country is very worried about what is happening there.
The hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) was entitled to express his fears that the House ought not. to rise for Whitsun, but I hardly agree with his reason. He suggested that it was not clear that the Government have a majority of 97. I can assure him that that is absolutely clear, although, on the other hand, it took about seven recounts to establish that he had a majority of three. From that point of view he ought not to have raised that question.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), in addition to speaking on South Africa, expressed the view that we should not rise until we had discussed the incomes policy. I can assure him that the success or failure of the incomes policy is not likely to hinge upon the question whether or not the House is here to debate it within the next 10 days. He also mentioned the Regulations, and some aspects of the Emergency Powers Act and the proclamation issued yesterday. These matters can be discussed on Thursday.
The right hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) mentioned the fact that on the dissolution of the last Parliament the Sexual Offences Bill fell. So did all the other legislation that had not been completed at the time. Whatever may have happened in another place yesterday with regard to the Bill to which he referred, if it should so happen that it is picked up here it will have to take its chance with other Bills. I cannot promise to give it priority over every other Private Member's Bill. It must take its chance.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter) was concerned about the appointment of an arms salesman and had a number of detailed questions to ask, none of which I can answer at the moment, but which he might put to my right hon. Friends at Question time or take the opportunity of an Adjournment debate—I understand that he has tried and failed—or further opportunities on Friday of this week and the usual half-hour Adjournments. He


suggested also that we might appoint a salesman for peaceful things like fertilisers and tractors. We did this, but our problem at the moment is delivering these products once we have the orders. However, I hope that that too will be resolved.
The hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell) kept referring to a 15 days' holiday. I must remind him that it is 10 Parliamentary days. It is a habit of the Liberal Party, with respect to the hon. Gentleman, to continue to do things of this sort in an exaggerated language. They are in the habit of promising the moon, knowing perfectly well that they will never have to produce it——

Mr. Bessell: I tried to make a constructive point. The dates given are from 27th May to 13th June, which I make to be 15 days. It is unfair of the right hon. Gentleman to be unnecessarily abusive.

Mr. Bowden: The hon. Gentleman is unnecessarily touchy. If he is of the opinion that this is 15 days, then he must be here alone on Saturdays and Sundays: I can assure him that the rest of us are not. Probably this is part of Liberal policy.
He raised the question of the Finance Bill and the Ministry of Labour Bill. I have answered this point on two successive Thursdays on Business questions. If he wishes to do as he threatened and divide the House on this question of a Recess, he is entitled to do so, but he will find himself in the position in which I

have been on more than one occasion, of having gone into the Lobby against a Motion for a Recess, hoping and praying that I would be defeated in the Lobby.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) asked why we should have a Recess at all——

Mr. Bessell: On a point of order. Is it in order for the Leader of the House to suggest that I would divide the House and then hope not to win my Division?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I do not think that any point of order arises.

Mr. Bowden: My hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central said that he was surprised at the length of the Recess and quoted certain figures showing that the House sits for perhaps one-third of the year and does not sit for two-thirds of the year. He ignored the fact that we sit on many nights in addition to the days and that his mathematical calculation cannot be applied to everything or everyone because hardly anyone works on a Saturday or a Sunday.
Discussion of an important Bill will follow this—the Ministry of Social Security Bill—and I hope, on my firm assurances that the Government will not hesitate to recommend Mr. Speaker, under Standing Order No. 117, to recall the House in case of need during the next 10 Parliamentary days, that we can now come to a decision on the Motion.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 202, Noes 8.

Division No. 15.]
AYES
[5.35 p.m.


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Ennals, David


Anderson, Donald
Butter, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Ensor, David


Archer, Peter
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)


Armstrong Ernest
Conlan, Bernard
Faulds, Andrew


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Fernyhough, E.


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Crawshaw, Richard
Fitt, Gerald (Belfast, W.)


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Grossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Foley, Maurice


Barnett, Joel
Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)


Baxter, Wiliam
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Ford, Ben


Bence, Cyril
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Fowler, Gerry


Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)
Davies, Robert (Cambridge)
Fraser, Rt. Hn. Tom (Hamilton)


Bidwell, Sydney
Delargy, Hugh
Galpern, Sir Myer


Bishop, E. S.
Dempsey, James
Gardner, A. J.


Blackburn, F.
Dewar, Donald
Garrow, Alex


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Gregory, Arnold


Boardman, H.
Dickens, James
Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Lianelly)


Booth, Albert
Doig, Peter
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)


Bowden, Rt. Hn. Herbert
Dunn, James A.
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Dunnett, Jack
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)


Brooks, Edwin
Dunwoody, Mrs. Cwyneth (Exeter)
Hannan, William


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th & C'b'e)
Haseldine, Norman


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Hatterstey, Roy


Brown,Bob(N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,W.)
Ellis, John
Hazell, Bert


Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & F'bury)
English, Michael
Heffer, Eric S.




Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Mapp, Charles
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Hilton, W. S.
Marquand, David
Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow,E.)


Hooley, Frank
Mellish, Robert
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Mendelson, J. J.
Roebuck, Roy


Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)
Mikardo, Ian
Rose, Paul


Howie, W.
Miller, Dr. M. S.
Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.)


Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)
Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Ryan, John


Hynd, John
Moonman, Eric
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)


Janner, Sr Barnett
Morgan, Elystan (Cardinganshire)
Sheldon, Robert


Jeger, George (Goole)
Moyle, Roland
Shore, Peter (Stepney)


Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Short,Rt.Hn.Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Neal, Harold
Short, Mrs. Renee (W'hampton,N.E.)


Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Newens, Stan
Silkin, John (Deptford)


Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Silkin, S. C. (Dulwich)


Kenyon, Clifford
Noel-Baker,RtHn.Philtp(Derby,S.)
Slater, Joseph


Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Norwood, Christopher
Small, Wiliam


Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Oakes, Gordon
Spriggs, Leslie


Lawson, George
O'Malley, Brian
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Leadbitter, Ted
Oram, Albert E.
Swingler, Stephen


Lee, John (Reading)
Orbach, Maurice
Symonds, J. B.


Lestor, Miss Jean
Oswald, Thomas
Thornton, Ernest


Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)
Tinn, James


Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Owen, Will (Morpeth)
Tuck, Raphael


Lipton, Marcus
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Urwin, T. W.


Lomas, Kenneth
Palmer, Arthur
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Loughlin, Charles
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Park, Trevor
Wallace, George


Lyons Edward (Bradford, E.)
Parker, John (Dagenham)
Watkins, David (Consett)


McBride, Neil
Pavitt, Laurence
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon & Radnor)


McCann, John
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Weitzman, David


McacColl, James
Pearl, Rt. Hn. Fred
Wellbeloved, James


Macdonald, A. H.
Pentland, Norman
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


McGuire, Michael
Perry, Ernest C. (Battersea, S.)
Whitlock, William


McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)


Mackintosh, John P.
Price, William (Rugby)
Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)


Maclennan, Robert
Probert, Arthur
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Rankin, John
Winnick, David


McNamara, J. Kevin
Redhead, Edward
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


MacPherson, Malcolm
Rhodes, Geoffrey
Yates, Victor


Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Richard, Ivor
Zilliacus, K.


Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)



Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Roberts Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. Grey and Mr. Gourlay.




NOES


Davidson,James(Aberdeenshire,W.)
Steel, David (Roxburgh)



Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Thorpe, Jeremy
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hooson, Emlyn
Wainwright, Richard (Caine Valley)
Mr. Lubbock and Mr. Bessell.


Pardoe, J.
Winstanley, Dr. M. P.

Orders of the Day — MINISTRY OF SOCIAL SECURITY BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

5.44 p.m.

The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Miss Margaret Herbison): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
All hon. Members will regret that the time for debating the Second Reading of the Bill has been cut down drastically. Because of that, I propose to reduce the length of time that I would otherwise have taken over my speech. While I appreciate that there will be many points which hon. Members would have wished me to have dealt with, I hope that they will feel that some of them may be raised in Committee when, I hope, we will have a longer time in which to discuss the matter.
When the Government were returned to office in 1964 they began a thorough review of our social services. We gave priority to considering the existing benefits and this led to the largest increase that had ever been given in these benefits—in the National Insurance, war pensions and National Assistance benefits—and they were given in 1965. After that, we reviewed the short-term benefits for unemployment and sickness and widows' allowance and, as a result of that, in the autumn of this year earnings-related supplements will be paid on top of the flat-rate benefits.
Today, we have before us what marks the completion of a further stage of the Government's review. The Bill before us provides a better deal for those who are among the poorest in our community. The survey of retirement pensioners is completed and the preliminary findings of that survey have been announced. We have found that there are about three quarters of a million old people apparently eligible for National Assistance, but who, for one reason or another, have not made application for it. Twenty out of every 100 of these people said that it was their pride that would not let them apply; that they disliked charity. About one-third of them said that they were managing, and it might

well be that among that one-third were quite a number who were also prevented from applying because of their pride.
On the other hand, a great many of the old people who were interviewed just did not know, or misunderstood, their rights to National Assistance. One of the things that distresses me most—and will, I am sure, distress the House—is that of the three-quarters of a million, in about a quarter of a million households there were old people appreciably below the National Assistance standard. This is a matter of very great concern, since these old people must be suffering real deprivation. Alongside these old people there are, of course, others in all age groups—for example, the chronic sick and fatherless families—to show that there is, indeed, poverty in this country.
It seems to the Government that the proper long-term way of tackling the problem of poverty in old age is a new scheme of national superannuation which will be earnings-related and which will give on maturity to everybody a higher standard of living upon retirement than the present scheme can possibly give. It is the Government's intention to bring in such a scheme within the lifetime of this Parliament, but this does not dispose of the immediate problem of the old people who are with us today.
The Government's answer to this problem is contained largely in this Bill, and it is threefold. It is, first, to establish a new administrative framework for social security within which the contributory and the non-contributory benefits will be jointly administered without the sharp distinction which exists today and which is itself responsible for keeping some people away from the help that they should have.
Secondly, the aim is to establish new and clear rules for awarding noncontributory benefits, as of right, to provide a form of guaranteed income for the elderly. Thirdly, the aim is to improve the level of benefit available to the elderly and others who need help over a long period without detailed inquiries into their particular needs, inquiries which, as hon. Members know, sometimes cause resentment.
The main features relating to the new administrative structure are contained in Clauses 1 to 14 and, for the benefits, the


very important Schedule 2. Because of the limited time available for discussing the Second Reading, it will probably be most helpful to the House if I focus attention on these main provisions.
The first two Clauses of the Bill set up the new Ministry, abolish the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and, in due course, abolish the National Assistance Board when non-contributory benefits are to be paid. When the Bill comes into operation, on, we hope, 6th August, with the help of both sides of the House, the Minister of Social Security will be formally appointed and the Minister, in turn, will appoint the Commission to adminster non-contributory benefit in preparation for the appointed clay for these benefits to be paid before the end of this year.
There are a number of reasons for creating the new Ministry. One is to co-ordinate policy for all social security benefits by investing responsibility for such policy clearly in the hands of one Department which will bring together the skill and experience in different fields which now exist in the two Departments. Secondly, as a result of unification, further steps will be taken to ensure that people who have claimed contributory benefits, retirement pension, sickness benefit, and so on, also get any help by way of non-contributory benefit to which they are entitled.
Thirdly, the new Ministry will develop a new comprehensive service for the public so that inquiries across the whole range of social security benefits can be dealt with at one point of contact. I put considerable stress on that. The fourth objective is to end the sharp distinction we have today in separate offices for the administration of contributory and non-contributory benefits in order to meet the feeling, which I am almost certain exists with some people, that a non-contributory benefit is inferior in kind and savours of charity.
The pace at which integration can proceed must necessarily depend on the practicability as well as on the desirability of making changes. As I see it, the first essential is to ensure that the two new schemes, that for earnings-related supplement and that for noncontributory benefit, get off to a good start and that the other business of the

Ministry, which must go on, is carried on as effectively as at present. The scope for administrative changes in the local offices will also be limited. It will be limited by the need for adaptation of premises and reorganisation of staff and procedures. But every effort will be made to achieve as rapid progress as possible and to make the concept of the Ministry of Social Security a reality in local administration.
The point has been made by the Opposition and others outside the House that bringing the Ministry of Health into this new scheme for re-organisation would secure better consideration of the welfare needs of our old people. We do not agree with that. To achieve this does not require a further combination of the health Departments with the Ministry of Social Security. Nor does it require further legislation. This does not mean that the Government are complacent, or that they believe that anything like sufficient is being done to detect welfare needs, particularly those of our old people. At present, we are very actively engaged in examining the best means of detection of the welfare needs of our old people.
What is obtaining at present? We know that standards vary greatly over the country, but we also know that some local authorities and voluntary organisations do much to detect and to cater for these needs. The job of welfare detection is one which is being done very effectively for nearly 1½ million old people by the officers of the National Assistance Board. We ought to express our appreciation for the work these officers do, not only in dealing with the financial needs of old people, but also in finding out about their welfare needs. This work of detection will be done for even greater numbers under the new scheme by the new Ministry.
The combined staff of the two existing Departments will join within the new Ministry high standards of skill and service to the public. This high standard of skill and service has justly earned a good reputation for both efficiency and humanity. The Government's expectation is that the combination of the staff's skill with the attraction of the new scheme of benefits will certainly achieve success in the development of the social services, particularly for old people.
I want to say something about the Commission. Within the Ministry there will be a Supplementary Benefits Commission, one of whose main tasks will be the administration, under regulations made by the Minister, of the non-contributory benefits. All the decisions for example as to the award of benefit and the conditions under which it is awarded, the adjustments to deal with various kinds of situation and exceptional circumstances and the kind of benefits to be paid will be made by the local officers acting under the direction of the Commission. The Commission will thus have a directing and adjudicating function.
I do not mind telling the House that at first I was against having a Commission, but the more I examined the problems the more I came to realise, as did the Government, what an important and worth-while part a Commission could play in the new Ministry. Responsibility for determining awards of benefit should not be vested in the Minister but in a group of independent people with an extensive knowledge of the kind of persons with whom the new scheme is concerned. Such a body with its discretionary powers to deal with exceptional circumstances is the best means of ensuring that the administration is responsive to particular individual needs and to the variations of the changes in social climate. It is important in any field where questions of social policy are involved to be able to draw on the knowledge and experience of people of distinction outside the Government service. The Commission, I hope, will provide that knowledge and that experience.
It has been suggested in some quarters that we were resurrecting the National Assistance Board, but that is not so. First, it is a deliberate step to establish within the Ministry independence in adjudication of the new benefit and wisdom in guiding its administration through that group of knowledgeable people. The Commission will not constitute, as the Board does today, a separate Government Department. Responsibility for the main lines of policy and for the standards of benefit will be the Minister's.

The second thing I stress is that we intend that the members of the Commission shall cover a wide variety of interests, that they will be a source of advice to the Minister on many social problems, and that, in particular, they will assist the Minister's programme of research into those problems. I think everyone in the House and, I am sure, most people in the country would agree that research into social problems until fairly recently has been largely neglected. The Commission can be a power house of ideas in this and other fields.
The two principal benefits conferred by the Bill are described in Clause 4 as supplementary pensions for those over the minimum pension age and as supplementary allowances for others. Finding names both for the Commission and for these has been very difficult indeed. These are the best that we could find. We have considered many. If anyone puts forward better ideas in Committee, we will be very glad to consider them and, if we think them better, to accept them.
The distinction between pension and allowance is a deliberate one. The elderly person will almost always require a payment over a long period—often, indeed, for the rest of his life; whereas many of those below pension age will require a benefit only to meet some unforeseen or unforeseeable emergency of a temporary nature. Therefore, for this latter group the title "pension" would certainly not be appropriate. But for the old the word "pension" is obviously the most acceptable. The term "supplementary" has been chosen to describe both benefits, because it can properly be used regardless of whether the claimant has a National Insurance benefit.
It will be seen that Clause 4 is written in terms of entitlement to benefit. This sets the tenor for the rest of the Bill. What the Government wish to get across to those who have been reluctant in the past to apply for the additional help for which they were eligible is that under the new scheme there is a clear statutory right to benefit for anyone who fulfils the conditions set out in the Bill. That is why, in respect of the supplementary pension, the White Paper speaks of a person qualifying for the pension as being assured of a guaranteed income.
The rules for the assessment of benefit are set out in detail in Schedule 2. The


basic principle of assessment is simple. The claimant's resources are set against his income requirements and, if there is a deficiency, benefit will be paid to make up that deficiency. For this purpose, the claimant includes his dependent family living with him, so that their resources and requirements are aggregated with his.
There are some modifications to the basic rule. First, should the deficiency of resources below requirements be less than 2s., no benefit is due. Most of us have had experience of an old person making application to the National Assistance Board and getting a book of orders for 1s. a week. Most of us know the resentment, and sometimes the bitterness, which has been caused because of that. This will no longer obtain under the new rules.
The rate of income requirements are set out in Part II of Schedule 2. They incorporate one feature to which the Government attach great importance, and a feature which is entirely new. That is the long-term addition of 9s. a week for all people over retirement age and for all people below pension age, other than the unemployed, who have been continuously in receipt of the new benefit, or previously of National Assistance, for at least two y ears.
The purpose of this long-term addition is a simple one. It is to remove in these cases the need to inquire into the small day-to-day expenses for which the bulk of the discretionary allowances are now made. Under the new scheme no special inquiries will be necessary in long-term cases, unless there are indications that there is chronic ill-health or disability giving rise to such heavy expenditure that further provision is necessary. Thus, one of the features of the existing scheme which has both made it difficult for the elderly person to estimate what he would be likely to receive if he applied and which has been a source of embarrassment and dislike to those who have applied will be eliminated.
There will be the added advantage that, when dealing with claims by old people, the officers of the new Ministry will be able to spend more time on ensuring that the claimant fully understands his rights and, above all, on ensuring that welfare reeds, particularly of the old, are not overlooked.
With the long-term addition, the basic guaranteed income for a single householder will be £4 10s. a week, exclusive of rent. Therefore, a pensioner living alone and paying a rent of, say, 30s. a week will have an assured income of £6 a week. If he has nothing but a retirement pension at the standard rate of £4, he will be entitled to a supplementary pension of £2 a week.
Similarly, for the married pensioner the guaranteed rate, with the long-term addition, will be £7 2s. for the couple. Therefore, a couple with a rent of 30s. a week will have an assured income of £8 12s. a week. If the couple have nothing apart from the standard rate of pension of £6 10s., they will be entitled to a supplementary pension of £2 2s. a week. It may be that they have considerable resources apart from the retirement pension but they might still be entitled to supplementary pension at these rates because of the quite extensive disregards of certain forms of income and of savings. I will deal with those later.
At present, the National Assistance Board pays full rent and rates in about 99 per cent. of cases. Only in the very exceptional cases is the full rent not paid. Under our new provisions this will also obtain, but we are doing something different for the non-householder—that is, the person who is living, possibly in a relative's household. In future all such persons will get a flat-rate allowance of 10s. a week, instead of, as at present, a variable allowance of not less than 2s. 6d. a week and not more than 15s. based on his share of the householder's rent, which is the current National Assistance provision.
There are several important reasons for making this change. A variable rent allowance of this kind bears no relation to the normal domestic arrangements, which will usually be that the person pays what he can afford for his keep in that kind of household. Another important factor is that it bears hardly on large families living in low-rented accommodation who very often have made the greatest sacrifice in providing in their own home a place for a frail or for an old parent. This is an important change, because under the present rules a very small sum is given for rent in those cases.
There is something else which we shall avoid. At present, detailed inquiries have


to be made of such an old person regarding the rent the householder is paying and the number and ages of the other people in the house. This will now be avoided. I know that hon. Members have had experience of the resentment which this inquiry into the circumstances of other people in the family can cause.
Now, the treatment of resources. The aim in constructing the new rules for treatment of resources has been twofold: first, to achieve straightforward and clear rules, and equity between one person and another; second, to strike a balance between the principle that, for a means-tested benefit, all resources should be taken into account and the need to avoid penalising thrift, voluntary giving or part-time work. The income rules have, therefore, been devised so as to allow some disregard on all income other than National Insurance benefits, family allowances and maintenance payments.
For the rest, the broad effect is that part-time earnings will be ignored up to 40s., disability pensions also will be ignored up to 40s., and the existing disregards of part of pensions paid to war widows and industrial injuries widows and part of widows' children's allowance will be preserved. Other income will be ignored up to 20s. provided that, apart from part-time earnings, the total to be ignored in any case does not go beyond the 40s.
I come now to the capital rules. These provide that the first £300 of savings and the income they produce will be totally ignored. This compares with £100 under National Assistance at present. On the next £500, 1s. a week will be taken into account in respect of each complete £25, and on capital over £800, 2s. 6d. a week will be taken into account in respect of each £25. It will be seen from what I have said that there will be no fixed limit to the amount of savings a person may have.
The point at which capital rules out payment of benefit will vary according to a person's liabilities and the extent of his other resources. All of us have had experience of the resentment which the fixed limit of £600 has caused. We have had, for example, the case of someone with £598 who could have an allowance from the National Assistance Board while

another with £601 could have no allowance at all. What we propose will do away with that kind of resentment.
The other novel feature is that income taken from capital will qualify for the 20s. disregard on income in general. The effect of this is that a person with no income other than his retirement pension will be able to have a further £500 on top of the basic £300, that is, £800 in all, without his supplementary pension being affected. A person with an annuity or occupational pension, of which 20s. is ignored, will have only the basic £300 completely ignored. This brings a measure of equity between people who have savings invested in different ways.
It will be seen that the tariff income from capital is higher than the income which the savings themselves can be expected to produce. But this is intended to be so, because it is only right that, when a person has substantial savings, he should be expected to draw on them to some extent for his day-to-day living expenses. The basic disregard of £300 ensures that no one is expected over the years to draw on all his capital.
The new disregards are more straightforward and fairer than the existing ones. At most points, too, they are more generous than existing ones, and, if any case should arise in which they prove less favourable to a particular individual, the transitional provisions ensure that no one shall receive a lower total from the new benefit than he does now.
I come now to the provisions which deal with exclusion from benefit, and I shall deal with only one category, that is, the man in full-time work. He is excluded. It follows from this that there still needs to be a wage-stop provision to ensure that the unemployed man is not better off financially when out of work than when he is doing his normal job. At present, about 15,000 of these men are affected by the wage stop.
But I stress to the House that these 15,000 form only the tip of an iceberg, The Ministry of Labour estimates that there are between 200,000 and 300,000 families in which the father is in full-time employment to-day, but whose incomes fall below the National Assistance Board scales. The Bill does not make any contribution towards solving the problem of achieving a reasonable


standard of living for the low wage earner with a large family, that is, the low-wage earner whether he is in work or out of work.
This very serious problem of the low-wage earner has been with us for a very long time, and I assure the House that the Labour Government have no intention of shelving it. Evidence of our desire and concern to overcome the problem is the survey of the financial circumstances of about 2,750 families with two or more children which is to be undertaken by the Ministry this summer. We hope to gain information from that survey which will guide us in the decision which must be taken to help these people.

Mr. David Winnick: Mr. David Winnick (Croydon, South) rose——

Miss Herbison: There is not much time. I should like to get on.

Mr. Winnick: It is just one point with reference to the survey. My right hon. Friend has spoken of a survey into poverty. We know that there are many people affected by the wage stop who are living in very poor circumstances. Does not my right hon. Friend agree that continuation of the wage stop will mean that the children of these families are cursed because the father, when in work, is not in a position to earn a very good income?

Miss Herbison: That is the point I was trying to make. I referred to the 5,000 and added that there are between 200,000 and 300,000 men in work whose families are suffering in the same way. We regard this as very wrong, and this is why we have announced that the survey will be undertaken.

Mr. Bernard Braine: This is a very important point. Can the right hon. Lady say when the results of this survey are likely to be in her hands and when they might lead to action?

Miss Herbison: No. We hope that the survey, that is, the work which has to be clone in visiting the families, and so on, will be started and completed in June this year, but there will then be quite a bit of work to do. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are not just waiting on this survey, but are doing a great deal of

other work which should complement the work which the survey is intended to do.
I had intended to deal with a number of other matters, but I must now cut them out. I take next one of the provisions in Part II of the Bill. Clause 16 provides generally for the abatement of certain payments where non-contributory benefit was awarded pending the receipt of those payments, the principle being that only one payment from public funds should be made for one contingency.
Subsection (1) does this for National Insurance and industrial injuries benefits and family allowances, and subsection (2) for rate rebates by providing that a rebate is to be reduced to the extent by which the non-contributory benefit actually paid exceeds what it would have been if the rebate had been available to the ratepayer at the time.
Part IV of the Bill has the heading, "Miscellaneous and Supplemental". That indicates that it is largely concerned with the consequential changes which must result from dissolving the National Assistance Board as a separate Department. Because of time, I shall draw attention to only one Clause in this Part. Clause 27 contains the provision for local advisory committees. These new Ministry of Social Security committees will replace the existing separate local National Assistance and National Insurance Advisory Committees, so that, instead of each locality having two such committees, it will have only one. There will be a unified network of local committees whose concern will be both with the administration of National Insurance and with non-contributory benefits.
Now I come to the question of cost. The Financial Memorandum indicates that the additional cost of the proposed benefits is expected to be about £51 million in the first full financial year for existing beneficiaries and that, if a further 250,000 people claim, this will add another £13 million approximately. Of this £65 million addition, £40 million represents real improvements and £25 million—for the 5s. increase in scale for the single person and 7s. 6d. increase in scale for the couples—represents the cost of the scale increases. I am sure that we all agree that the £40 million, which represents real improvement, will be well


spent in helping the poorest in our community.
The financial provisions for the new Ministry and the new benefits in the current financial year will entail some change in the Estimates to be placed before the House. The House's approval to these changes and to the additional expenditure involved will be sought through the winter Supplementary Estimates. In the interval before these Estimates have been voted, the intention is to draw on existing votes for the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and the National Assistance Board.
So far, I have dealt with the provisions in the Bill. Now I wish to say something about the changes in the administration of the benefits because I regard this as of considerable importance. These changes have been outlined in the White Paper. First —and this change will come into effect as soon as the benefits become payable—anyone over pension age who wishes to do so will be able to submit a written statement of his financial circumstances instead of having the necessary form completed by an official in his own home. There will have to be an interview afterwards for confirmation, but, again, the applicant will have the choice either of having the interview in his home or in one of our offices.
I am told that experience has shown that most old people like to be dealt with at home and, of course, our officers will very gladly bring the service to their home. On the other hand, some prefer otherwise because of the feeling that they do not want an officer to be seen at their door and the new arrangements will meet the wishes of these people.
The second administrative change is that the supplementary pension is to be paid on the same order book as the retirement pension. We cannot do this immediately the new benefits begin to be paid, but will do it as quickly as possible. The pensioner will then have only one book to present at the Post Office and it will be the same kind of book whether or not he is receiving a supplementary pension. This will do away with the embarrassment and the hurt to pride which many old people experience when presenting their supplementary allowance books at the Post Office.
Thirdly, awards for people over pension age will normally be reviewed annually instead of every six months as at present, and, in the absence of any change in financial circumstances, a person will have a guaranteed income for the whole year ahead.
Finally, the Ministry will be taking measures to ensure that, as soon as possible on retirement or on subsequent widowhood, every pensioner is made fully aware of the supplementary pension scheme and either makes a claim or gives a definite indication that he does not want to claim. Any pensioner who does not respond to the written request will be personally contacted. Again, this is important to ensure that all pensioners, widows or old persons, realise what is theirs if they will only make application.
The Bill and the changes in administration should go a long way to overcome the reluctance on the part of some old people to claim what is theirs by right. Our aim is to ensure that the benefits will be regarded as a completely acceptable part of our social security provisions and that they are paid to all people who have a title to them.
The Bill is a genuine attempt to ensure that none of our old people need lead a life of deprivation after retirement. The Government sincerely believe that these provisions will ensure this by giving them a form of guaranteed income in such a way that their dignity and self-respect will be maintained. All of us in the House would want to do that.
Earlier, I touched on some of the aspects of social security that still will have to be improved. I want, finally, to say to the House, as I say to every meeting that I address in the country, that we can have worthwhile, comprehensive social security only if the nation wills the means for it. Higher production and higher productivity will solve not only our economic problems but will go a long way to solving some of the human problems with which we are so concerned-human problems which, if left unsolved, will continue to cause misery and deprivation.
The Government have introduced many Measures to make increased productivity possible and are determined that the results of the increase will be justly


distributed. What we must never forget is that many of the people with whom all of us are concerned today are those who experienced the hungry 'twenties and 'thirties, with little opportunity to make adequate provision for their old age. Today, I ask the House and the nation to give us the means to make this provision for them and to give us the means also to make it available to all the others who are still deprived.

6.30 p.m.

Miss Mervyn Pike: I should like to ask the indulgence of the House, not because this is the first time that I have spoken from the Dispatch Box, but because it is the first time in my life that I have spoken when wearing spectacles. I have very strong reading glasses and if I can see my notes clearly and correctly I find that hon. Members opposite are indistinct and blurred. On reflection, I have decided to see my notes clearly and I apologise if I fail to recognise any hon. Members opposite.
I should like, first, to make the complaint that the Bill is being taken today. It is one of the most important Measures which we have had or will have in this Parliament, and we have had our time for debate cut short very severely. We know that the right hon. Lady has cut a great deal out of her speech. I undertook not to interrupt her, so as not to make her task even more difficult, but we still have only a very short time. After all, the Government must have known that there would be a debate on the Whitsun Adjournment Motion today, so they must take full responsibility for the cut in time. I should like an undertaking, which I am sure the right hon. Lady will give us, that in Committee we can have as full a discussion of these matters as possible and that there will be no attempt to cut us down in any way.
I do not want to take too long this evening, because there are many hon. Members on both sides of the House who want to speak. Although the right hon. Lady looks somewhat indistinct to me at the moment, we are grateful to her that there was nothing indistinct in her description of the Bill's provisions. I must confess that I was very puzzled, when the Bill was first presented, that her name was not on it. I thought that she

must have decided to deny all parentage of a Measure whose only distinguishing feature was that it embodied part of the constructive social security proposals of my right hon. Friends.
However, I am glad that we can congratulate the right hon. Lady on her rôle of stepmother of the Measure. I remind her that stepmothers are not by nature usually wicked or unfeeling, but that very often their shortcomings stem from a lack of understanding and a sense of envy that the parentage is not wholly theirs. I hope that the right hon. Lady will not suffer from that.
Although the Bill does very little beyond changing the name and redefining the parentage of the National Assistance Board, we welcome it because it is a step forward to bringing greater social security and greater social justice into our national life. These are things about which all of us are deeply concerned and we on this side of the House propose to do all we can to help the right hon. Lady and her hon. Friends to be wise guardians in this respect and as far as possible to expedite and improve the Bill. Of course, any Bill which proposes to give something over £60 million to those in need must be welcomed in the House and in the country as a whole.
Nevertheless, with much of last year's increase in benefits already eaten away by the present rate of inflation, the financial provisions of the Bill will be judged by fair-minded people as no more than a necessary act of justice which goes some way, and only some way, towards relieving the increasing financial burden of those least able to protect themselves. I do not need to remind the House that although the Bill increases the scale rates for those receiving supplementary allowances, other than in the long term, by 5s. for a single person and 7s. 6d. for a married couple, the value of last year's increase has already been cut by more than 3s. and 5s. respectively and that inflation is still going ahead rapidly.
Nor need I remind the House that we on this side of the House have a very good record about keeping benefits well ahead of rising prices and well in line with rising standards. This record gives us the right to press for the real value of social benefits to be constantly increased.
The right hon. Lady has given us a very full account of the proposed changes in the scales of payment, new forms of discretionary benefit for the elderly and the long-term cases and the changes of the assessment of resources. These changes are welcomed so far as they go. In the circumstances of our curtailed debate, I shall not delay the House by going through them with repetition and nor at this stage shall I make Committee points, but I wish to re-emphasise that we hope that our request for a very full Committee stage will be granted.
Although the country's present economic position is such that it would be irresponsible to press for larger increases, it should be clearly recognised that the Bill still fails to meet the needs of many of those who are most deserving of the nation's assistance. I wish to ask the right hon. Lady some specific questions. The first is about the assessment of resources, the disregards. The object of sub-paragraphs (1) and (2) of Schedule 7(4) appears to be that nobody will be worse off as a result of changes in the treatment of savings or the ending of the former non-contributory pension. I must confess that the Bill is far from clear on this point and raises certain doubts. The Minister should, therefore, make a categorical statement that the Bill will ensure that everybody now getting benefits will, without exception, be better off.
My second question is concerned with the provision for the old and the longterm cases, the chronic sick. The Bill makes special provision for these to whom a special allowance of 9s. will be payable. However, that 9s. compares with an average discretionary allowance at present of 10s. a week. If 1 million or more people are now getting an average of 10s. a week, we must know from the right hon. Lady that the intention is that they will get better treatment, and that is not clear from either the Bill or the White Paper, if a flat-rate discretionary allowance of 9s. is to be paid in future.
I turn now to some of the things which the Bill has not done, because this, of course, is one of the greatest opportunities which we have had of doing so. The right hon. Lady has talked a great deal about present-day need, but so much of what she has told us today

and so many of the Bill's provisions are the same old things hashed up, perhaps given new clothing, but going very little further than before.
For example, what about the disabled? We are glad that the special rates for the blind will continue, but surely the Government have missed a most important opportunity to examine the whole range of disablement to see whether there are other illnesses or other disablements which could rank for equal treatment with blindness, for instance, those people who have to live in iron lungs, or those with multiple sclerosis, or others who in one way or another are suffering severer disablement and who are now getting special treatment. The Government have reproduced the greater part of the Assistance Act of 1948 in the Bill and they could easily have taken this opportunity to bring some of those other provisions up to date.
It may be due to an oversight, but why is there no mention of special rates for tubercular persons who are at present provided for by the National Assistance Board? These are matters which we shall want the right hon. Lady to clear up either today or in Committee.
Most important, and the matter on which the right hon. Lady laid the greatest stress, is the issue of the problem families. As the right hon. Lady said, the Bill makes no attempt to deal with these families in which the earnings of the father are below National Assistance level. She has given us the figures. We calculate—and I am sure that she will agree—that there are about 500,000 children who are living in families with an income below the National Assistance level. She explained that in June another small survey was to take place to see what could be done in this regard and that the Government were thinking hard about ways of meeting this problem.
I must remind the right hon. Lady that when they were in opposition the Government poured scorn on the wage-stop in speech after speech. Indeed, the right hon. Lady spoke of thousands and thousands of decent families penalised by the wage-stop. This was in 1963. But nothing has been done. Another survey is being made and another look at the whole problem is being taken. Most of us would accept that it would be wrong to pay a man more when he is out of work


than when in work, but this is a category which must be tackled with vigour and imagination. It is a category which really needs a special priority on social as well as on humane grounds. Most of these cases occur where there are several children in the family. Surely we can examine ways of tackling the problem through the family allowance system.
The Government have adopted a great many of our ideas and there are still a great many more which we hope to see them adopt. We do not mind how many of our ideas they adopt, as long as they are used to help solve the real problems of the nation. We shall not adopt a "hole in the corner" attitude about these things. I will tell the hon. Lady how she can do this, without waiting for her survey and for any more consultations. It should be possible to add a supplementary family allowance to those whose income is below a certain figure. The right hon. Lady has already told us of the numbers she already knows. There are others, about whom she does not know. Let us help the people about whom we know. These children who are growing up will probably be 20 or 30 before ate hon. Lady has made up her mind what she intends to do.
Let us tackle those we already know. It should be possible to add a supplementary family allowance to these people. This figure would have to vary with the number of children, but this is already an arrangement under the rate rebate arrangements. The Government have copied our ideas here because as hon. Members opposite will remember, it was my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) who, at the 1963 Conservative Party conference, first put this proposal forward. We were glad to see it later, incorporated in a Government Bill. We do not mind how many of our ideas are copied. Here is one idea which the right hon. Lady can adopt. I suggest that she looks at this with urgency.
There may be other ideas that my hon. Friends have, which they will put forward in this debate. These families are not only centres of misery and misforutne. That is bad enough, but all too often they provide the breeding grounds for delinquency and crime. All too often they generate those things in our society which lead to so much weakness and misfortune. We really must act with the

greatest imagination. We hope that in Committee we will be able to press the right hon. Lady to be more imaginative in this connection.
What about the non-pensioners? I have been reading the right hon. Lady's election address—I hope that she has read it herself, because in her 1964 address she said that she would do something about these non-pensioners, or that is how I read it. Nothing has been done except for those who come within the old National Assistance scales. The majority of these people are over 80. There are about 150,000 of them at present, but the number is dwindling the whole time.
These people have a very special claim upon our help. Many of them will be helped by the Bill as a result of the increased provisions and the higher scale of benefits, but a very great many of them, no doubt a very large majority of the remainder of these, are just marginally on the wrong side of the borderline enabling them to get this increased help. They have had their savings eaten away by inflation and rising prices. They have had their standards diminished by all kinds of changing circumstances and an opportunity could be taken now to do something for them.
There are other categories which could have been looked at. For example, there are the widows. I feel particularly strongly about this, because my mother was left a widow before she was 50, with myself at school and my brother just entering university. This was at the most expensive time of our lives, and it is difficult for a woman at that age to reenter employment after she has been away from it for some time. I had hoped that an opportunity might have been taken to make some worth-while changes in the National Insurance scheme on this subject. We can soften the rigid barrier for the widow of 50, and this was an opportunity for doing so. We on this side have promised that we will do this, and we shall certainly press the right hon. Lady to see whether something can be done along these lines.
Again, what about the earnings limit? There is an unanswerable case for raising the earnings limit for the retirement pensioner by £1, from £5 to £6. The limit was last raised by a Conservative


Government and since then average earnings have considerably increased and are still increasing. I expect that the Minister will say that the whole question of the earnings rule is being reviewed by an advisory committee. Much as we like advisory committees to look at these things, all of us recognise this problem. Surely the right hon. Lady will not continue to use this excuse.
Security in the social sense means more than money. We must recognise the special problems of retirement—the sudden realisation of a sense of uselessness and loneliness, and a loss of status. Anything which can ease this and enable people to acclimatise themselves, through part-time employment, and by part-time earnings to readjust themselves in society, gives them a greater sense of social security than a slight increase in benefit.
These are the questions which we shall be pressing upon the right hon. Lady later. I am sure that the House will accept that the real importance of the Bill does not lie in its financial provisions. The Beveridge scheme, which is the bedrock upon which all our present social security system is built, was created, whatever we like to say in the heat of election time, with the co-operation of all parties and in an atmosphere overshadowed by prewar unemployment and widespread poverty. Today, poverty no longer coincides with social class or with types of employment.
Need is increasingly a matter of circumstance. We are on the way to becoming a middle-income society, provided that the economy can sustain the onslaughts of the present Government. On present trends, by the end of the century, the average male wage earner will have a buying power of about £80 a week at present-day prices. In these circumstances, it does not make sense and it does not help us to meet rapidly changing circumstances, to remain in an attitude of mind that can only recognise the prejudice. the injustice and the bitterness of the 1930s.
It is because the Conservative Party has recognised that what is needed is a dynamic approach, which is more humane and more flexible, and more efficient in its use of scarce resources, that we have adopted a policy which seeks to concentrate future help on the

needy. This policy has been widely distorted, for political purposes, by the party opposite as a return to the means test State. For my own part I am not afraid of words and of using them precisely. I am prepared to use either the phrase "means test" or "test of need", because these phrases seem to mean the reality that is a blend of hard-hearted common sense, compassion, understanding and financial responsibility, which is essential if we are to approach this problem properly.
Those of us who really care for social justice see the importance of the Bill as a valuable step forward in the evolution of our nation's social policy, because it marks, for the first time, the rejection of one of the most damaging pieces of Labour mythology ever to retard the social progress of the nation. The right hon. Lady will be more relieved than any of her colleagues that, at last, she has been able to exorcise this particular demon from her subconscious. I think that she will accept that I like her and respect her enough to believe that she has a very lively moral conscience. She must have had nightmares when she remembers how, in the House, where we do not really believe in the hobgoblins of her own folklore, she finally rejected the 1964 minimum income guarantee scheme, with its avoidance of a personal test of means.
The right hon. Lady will recollect that occasion, on 7th March, when she said:
We have never hid that the income guarantee would be based on means. This scheme will also be based on means. We have never tried to hide that."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 1731.]
Yet three weeks later, in a party political television broadcast, she sought to frighten those who are most vulnerable by one of the most cruel pieces of political scaremongering.
In the original proposals for an incomes guarantee, it was suggested that a single Income Tax form could be used. No doubt the right hon. Lady has seen the Income Tax form which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has sent out, the one with 24 pages. I hope that we have at last got away from all this scaremongering about means test and the means test state. To be relieved of an evil spell, one has to find the magic formula. In this case, I suggest that the right hon.


Lady has found it by substituting the words "a form of guaranteed income" for "minimum income guarantee". Do not let us have any more double talk about this being a wicked Tory device.
There is no doubt, as the Minister has that the Bill increases the number of people entitled to help on a needs test basis. At present, about 2,024,000 people are means tested under National Assistance. Taking account of their dependants, this means that 5 to 6 million people are covered by the needs test. The right hon. Lady said in the same television broadcast in which the right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Cross-man) spoke about the "wicked Tory scare" that nearly 7 million people would be covered by the Bill. This is the nub and core of the Bill. We welcome it, because at last we shall be able to use our resources efficiently, humanely and in the best interests of the people who need them most.
As our social service policy has evolved, a great many inherent disadvantages have become increasingly apparent to all of us. First, there has been too little recognition of the fact that in most cases care in the form of meals-on-wheels, home helps, home nursing, chiropody and hearing aids is very often more important than cash. This is one of the reasons why we are so anxious to bring the responsibilities of the Ministry of Health under the umbrella of the Ministry of Social Security and thereby make absolutely certain that matters of care and cash are under one roof.
Secondly, as the right hon. Lady has said, a social stigma has attached to the old National Assistance. Many people do not claim the benefit to which they are entitled. We all recognise from our constituency work that this is a real disadvantage. But the Bill goes only part of the way towards remedying this defect. There will no longer be a separate organisation dealing solely with poverty and this will remove some of the stigma, but we have to go much further than the right hon. Lady indicated in giving the local offices of the new commission a very positive duty to seek out those who need help, either in cash or care. I am sure that the right hon. Lady hopes that they will do this, and I feel certain that the intention is that this should be done, but she will recollect that in the Conservative

Government's Children and Young Persons Bill, in 1963, we made it a positive responsibility that this should be done.
The most important battle is the first step of getting people to apply for help. We want that first step to be taken by the Ministry. The Minister says that the officials might visit or invite the pensioners to visit them, but a register of old people must be built up as quickly as possible in the local offices. There will be staffing problems, but, as the right hon. Lady said, staff will be made available because of the new arrangement. If the register is built up quickly, it can be kept up to date from the pension book. This is one of the most important things, and a positive responsibility to do this should be written into the Bill. There are far too many people—the old, those who are lonely and sick and those who are badly in need of help—whose needs never see the light of day because nobody finds out about them until it is too late. Here is a chance to make certain that we do something about them.
Thirdly, we believe that a great opportunity has been lost because we do not have an inspectorate of welfare. I do not like the word "inspectorate". Call them "welfare surveyors", or what we will, but we must have some body of well-intentioned and well-informed people who will have the task of improving the co-ordination between the local authority health and welfare services. There is a tremendous lack of skilled people to do this work. In our society there will always be a tremendous scarcity of really well-trained social workers. Women are marrying younger. They are having larger families. Therefore, there will probably be fewer women in this type of full-time employment. There is, however, plenty of scope for the part-time worker.
There must be in our social welfare work the most efficient use of everybody who is working. There must be no overlapping. There must be the greatest possible co-ordination. We must ensure that the best standards are the uniform standards. We all know that in some areas the standards are good, but that in a borough on the other side of the street they are considerably lower. This type of inspectorate could ensure that there was the greatest possible co-ordination and uniformity of the best standards. We want something more than a vague assurance that this will happen under the Bill.


A positive duty should be laid down by the Ministry of Social Security.
Finally, it is important to stress the tremendous and vital need to have a Ministry of Social Security which is competent to take a comprehensive view of the whole field and which can initiate research. It is impossible to overemphasise the importance of continuous research which is designed to pin-point the changes in social needs. We recognise the need and meet it and forget how quickly circumstances change. We live in an age when society is changing more rapidly than ever before. Irrespective of party, we recognise that our system of social security is becoming out of date very rapidly. We must realise that to bring it up to date is not a once-for-all operation but a continuous process and that we shall constantly have to adapt our social policy to keep in tune with modern needs.
This is why it is essential to have a research unit able to indentify the changing needs and circumstances which will not only draw its knowledge and expertise from within itself but freely seek expert advice from the universities, industry and other social workers in the field. We shall press the Minister to make this a positive commitment in the Bill rather than hope that research will be carried on by the over-burdened and busy people who are already working in the field.
These problems, which reach into every corner of our everyday life, call for something more than the meagre proposals in the Bill. The Minister said that the Bill was a first step. But we want to go forward quickly and not with hesitant steps, as is the case at present. We must have a unified social strategy. This is why we on this side of the House believe passionately that it is important to bring in not only the National Assistance Board and the Ministry of Pensions, but the Ministry of Health, so that we can have a unified strategy which commands the respect of everybody working in the field.
I have tried to show why we believe that the Bill to some extent falls far short of the need. Recent circumstances and events have dramatically highlighted the need for this unified approach. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's recent proposals for the Selective Employment Tax

will hit the same group of people that the Bill is attempting to help. We all want to see better health and welfare services and better care. Yet under the Selective Employment Tax arrangements local authorities will, in the first instance, have to pay the tax and then wait for the refund. They will be forced to make an interest-free loan to the Government in providing these services, so the tax is bound to hamper the employment of the disabled and will be a big blow to charities.
All of us accept that in this field the voluntary organisations bear a tremendous responsibility in trying to meet the needs of the people we are trying to help. Surely a strong Minister of a unified Ministry of Social Security, with a really powerful voice in the Cabinet, would never have countenanced this tax, which inevitably will have far-reaching and damaging effects throughout the whole welfare field.
I have tried to explain some of the main reasons why we cannot share the right hon. Lady's great enthusiasm—her somewhat uncritical enthusiasm—for the Bill. In our social policy we must seek to safeguard the weak, to reward the thrifty, to try to prevent misery and misfortune wherever it happens, and try to encourage self-reliance. The Bill meets very few of those requirements. We recognise that it is an essential act of justice to many who are suffering from the growing burden of inflation and indiscriminate taxation. The right hon. Lady said that what is needed is a bold and imaginative Ministry of Social Security. We see nothing bold or imaginative in the Bill and we regret that it is such a hesitant and inadequate step on a road that must be tackled with determination, humanity and courage.

7.2 p.m.

Mr. William Price: I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me an opportunity of making my maiden speech and ensuring that I can go away and enjoy the 15 days' holiday as the Recess has been described by some hon. Members opposite. Time is short, and I do not propose to say much about my constituency, other than that it gave its name to the rather curious game of Rugby football. It all started when a youngster called William Webb Ellis broke the


rules by picking up the ball for some unaccountable reason and running for dear life.
I make no secret of the fact that I am one of the tea-room warriors who regard the activities of this House as equally curious. I only hope that if the need arises I shall be able to run as fast with my Order Paper as Webb Ellis did with a ball in 1823. The plaque at Rugby School says:
With a fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time, he took up the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus originating the distinctive feature of the Rugby game.
One of the first organised matches took place in 1872 between Rugby and Lutterworth. A local reporter wrote that Rugby played below their normal form because of the nonsensical rules. It might well be that there is a moral in that story. The following week an irate gentleman from Lutterworth wrote to the Rugby Advertiser stating that the rules were not nonsensical and that Rugby had been supplied with a copy five weeks earlier and should have understood them. I can appreciate only too well their dilemma. I have been in this House for five weeks, and I am just as mystified by the rules and the procedure as my predecessors in Rugby must have been all those years ago.
I had nothing in common politically with my immediate political predecessor Mr. A. R. Wise. Indeed, I found many of his views repugnant, but he treated me at all times with sympathy and understanding. He looked after his constituency in a way that earned the respect even of political opponents, and that might well be one of the reasons why he took so much shifting.
One thing above all else that impresses me about my constituency is the tremendous amount of charitable work carried out on behalf of the elderly, the very young, the sick, and the disabled. They will regard this Bill as yet another step towards an egalitarian society in which vast riches—and they still exist—and dire poverty will be abolished for good. I welcome the Bill, and I am delighted to hear tonight that the Conservative Party has found its social conscience at last.
Let us not forget that even now there will be millions of people trying to live

on £4 10s. a week—the price of bed and breakfast at some of the illustrious sleeping houses frequented by hon. Members oposite during Epsom week. As we spend hundreds of millions of £s on the means of destruction, let us not forget the old and the lonely, the incurably sick who cannot be found a hospital bed, and the children with no parents, and let us remember the 2 million widows. I declare an interest, for my mother is a widow. Luckily, my father worked for long enough at the coalface before his death to ensure that she had a £4 a week pension. The alternative at that time was 10s. a week, perhaps the biggest social scandal of our generation. The position has improved, but the treatment of widows remains a national disgrace.
I recently dealt with the case of a young woman who lost her husband in the most tragic circumstances and who was left with two children, a pile of debts and an income of £8 a week. What did I advise? I advised her to beg a pittance from the National Assistance Board, or alternatively to employ somebody to look after the children, go out to work, and get taxed as a single person.
I am not interested in making party points. Whatever the reasons, and whoever is responsible, there is abject poverty in Britain today. No one on either side of the House can deny that there are far too many people trying to live a decent life on far too little money. The time is coming when society will have to face its responsibilities. There can be do doubt that there are some individual members of society who are lacking in responsibility. There are, sadly, far too many people who have grown up and have then discarded the parents who made their lives and prosperity possible. This is a field in which long-term education is needed, but in the meantime we must exercise a greater degree of humanity on their behalf.
I wish to deal with just one other point, which sometimes causes criticism from the elderly ladies of the Primrose League. We hear a lot about the people who are too idle to work or who find it convenient not to work because they can get more money from the State. No doubt this criticism will increase as we improve social security. I do not deny that the odd cases exist—undoubtedly they do—but let us get this in perspective.
In many parts of the West Midlands, the unemployment rate is well under 1 per cent. If one takes out the disabled, the sick, those moving between jobs and those who are genuinely unemployed, there are not many idle people left. I am satisfied that during the next five years we shall see a significant advance towards the social revolution which the country so badly needs. I look forward to a society in which people need no longer dread old age or sickness. The Bill makes a significant contribution to that end. It goes a long way towards removing the stigma of the workhouse which prevented so many people from applying for the National Assistance to which they were fully entitled.
I referred earlier to those in my constituency who do so much charitable work, and I hope that it will continue. Let us, however, ask ourselves whether it is right that children in Dr. Barnardo's Homes, ex-Service men and women in the care of the British Legion, the crippled, and so on, should have to depend for a few luxuries on people who are prepared to go begging at street corners.
The time is coming when we shall stop using those admirable charities as an excuse for not facing our duty to the weaker members of our society. Let us, perhaps for the only time, forget party politics and continue planning a just life for the 8 million people who have fallen by the wayside. The Bill represents a real start. It is, one might say, the bread to carry us on the rest of the journey.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I call the next speaker, may I remind the House that the debate has been severely curtailed? I hope that hon. Members who have the good fortune to catch my eye will think of others who are also waiting to catch my eye.

7.13 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: It gives me the greatest pleasure, for the first time duiing the seven years or so that I have been in Parliament, to follow a maiden speaker. I have heard a number of hon. Members say this during the last few weeks; I guess that there are so many new hon.

Members on the benches opposite that it is now becoming common practice. It gives me, however, a particular pleasure.
I was interested to hear from the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) about the background to his constituency and the game of Rugby. I was a little concerned at one stage lest he might consider breaking the rules of the House and pick up the Mace and run out with it. The hon. Member follows a colleague on my side of the House who was held in high esteem on both sides because of his independence of mind, because he was not afraid to be controversial and, as the hon. Member for Rugby has made clear, because of the great work he did in his constituency.
I am sure that the hon. Member would not expect me to say to him that I hope he will be in this place as many years as was his predecessor, because we would wish that his predecessor was back. Nevertheless, I hope that the hon. Member will enjoy however long he is in this place. We will certainly look forward with interest to hearing him in the future. He has been non-controversial today, he has spoken on a non-controversial subject and we all enjoyed immensely the speech that we have heard from him.
We on this side broadly agree with the Bill. We do not really think that it is in line with the Government's great scheme for modernisation. We wonder whether that is still to come and when the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will have finished his review, which we have been promised for a considerable time. The Bill may seem a fairly massive, expensive stopgap in social security, but I doubt very much whether it will be—certainly, in our view, it ought not to be—the last word on the pattern for social security in the future.
The Bill sees the end of the National Assistance Board. It would be proper—and, at least, I would wish—to pay tribute to the work of the Board over the last few years. There is no doubt that most hon. Members who have from time to time interviewed constitutents who have been assisted by the Board would recognise that it has done its work of help and service in a quiet, efficient and generous manner. My only doubt on the Bill is whether, when we set up a Commission and bring it within the direct responsibility of the Minister, the


taking away of the independence of the Commission will not bring the assistance required so much within political controversy as to be a disservice.
I hope this will not happen. I hope that the Commission will be encouraged to have the same flexibility as the National Assistance Board has exercised during the last few years. The discretion of this body is an important factor in dealing with those cases which go beyond the fixed sums laid down and the allowances set out in the Bill.
Throughout her speech this afternoon, the Minister seemed to lay great emphasis on old people. I would certainly be the last to say that in a Bill of this kind the House should not concern itself very largely with old people. They are a growing population and they will concern any Government and any Ministry of Social Security very much in the years to come.
There is, however, a great danger should we imagine that poverty and difficulty reside wholly with the elderly among our population. As my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) has said, one of the things that the Government have not done for the old people is to help them more to help themselves. There are a great many old people who want to help themselves because they want to work beyond the age of 65 and earn a little more. If trey are fit and well over that age, this is something that we should encourage.
We should not accept the view that because someone is beyond that age he is a problem entirely for the Welfare State. This is something that such a person would certainly deny himself. The Government have to recognise that, and I am not sure that it was entirely recognised in the speech that we heard from the right hon. Lady.
There is, however, a section of people who suffer from extreme poverty because of the way in which they were born into the world. Time does not do it; it is simply an accident of nature. They are born disabled, blind or mentally ill. There are others who acquire those disabilities through accidents of one sort or another. The Bill does not do enough for them.
In recent years, the nation has not recognised the responsibility that it has to do more for these people. The

Bill gives a plus amount for those who are blind, but what about the very disabled who are looked after by local authorities and private organisations? Those local authorities and private organisations will be given support by the new Ministry of Social Security, as they have been by the old Ministry. But there is nothing in the Bill which says that a greater emphasis should be laid on the support given to those people.
A great many disabled people are working, yet they come out of the workshops with only about 15s. or 16s. a week pocket money. The rest of the money which is provided by the Ministry goes to pay for their board and lodging. It is true that these people are not so productive as others who work. They could not justify earning the kind of money that I saw mentioned in the Press the other day, where it was reported that at one of our large motor works the average weekly income over a certain number of weeks had been £37. They cannot make that sort of money, because they are disabled. But they are working, and it is the responsibility of Government to see that from the many millions of pounds that are provided for welfare the work of those people is recognised and they are given a much greater incentive than they are at present.
There again, in terms of what is provided for disabled people in private homes through private societies, there is something missing in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Melton mentioned the Selective Employment Tax. One of the greatest troubles with the Government and the party opposite is that one Minister does not seem to know what another Minister is doing. No doubt just about when this Bill was being produced the Ministers concerned with it were somewhat embarrassed to find that the Budget did much to destroy the value of what was to be done.
Unless we on this side can persuade the Chancellor to change his mind, the Selective Employment Tax will be a charge on many of those private societies who seek support from this Bill. This will affect their ability to assist people they at present support with the help of the National Assistance Board and, in due course, with that of the new Commission which is to be set up. I thought


that my hon. Friend asked a very pertinent question when she asked the right hon. Lady whether she had anything to say in the Cabinet about the imposition of the tax in that context.
Then we have the savings limit of £300. I would not have thought that that was a great encouragement to people to save. It is true that it is considerably higher than before. Nevertheless, although any income from savings up to that amount is disregarded, this concession is contradicted by the fact that anything held above £300 will be taken into account each year when the allowances are fixed. I hope that in Committee we may seek a higher amount than £300. We have to consider the matter in the long-term on the basis of whether or not we encourage people to save. If we are to encourage them to save, we should, when we come to look at the amount to be fixed under the Bill, be a little more generous than we have been in the relevant Clause.
The right hon. Lady said that the nation can only have the social security which it wills. There is a fundamental difference between social security under the party opposite and social security as we on this side want it to be. The party opposite believes that social security is something which should be provided almost entirely by the State. We believe that the State should be the catalyst, that it should be the main provider, but that encouragement should be given to industry, to private organisations and to individuals to provide for their own social security.
We believe that it will be the better for that, first, because there is a limit to what the nation will pay in taxes. If encouragement is given to individuals, to companies and others outside the State to provide a plus on top of what is provided by the Ministry, that will help towards the raising of standards in social security throughout the whole population.
Now is not the time to go into that theme, but that is the fundamental difference between the two sides of the House. In the long run, I believe that the country will come to see that we are right.

7.28 p.m.

Mr. Michael McGuire: I, too, welcome the Bill as a further step in

my party's programme of real social security based on social justice.
I do not want to follow the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) too far into what he said, but he mentioned one point with which I fundamentally disagree when he implied that perhaps we should encourage people to work well beyond the present retiring age.
Before I came into Parliament, I was a branch secretary in the mines. Most of the miners would say that what they want to do is finish work much earlier and finish after their labours on a good pension. They do not want to be troubled with going to what will become the Social Security Office and what was the National Assistance Board office.
When we discuss this kind of Bill, fundamentally we are talking about a working-class problem. Theirs is the problem of acquiring enough money to live on decently. It is a problem which, in the main, is one for those whom we call the working class—my kind of people. They are the people who finish work today on the railways with very little. They are the people who finish work in the mines with £1 a week.
It ill becomes hon. Gentlemen opposite to talk about thrift, because any day of the week I can pick up what are called the quality papers—I shall not mention them by name—and see advertisements for jobs which, as an inducement, offer what are called top-hat pensions. People who take these jobs do not have to worry about receiving National Assistance at the end of their working lives. The problem will remain with the working classes until my party abolishes the biggest swindle ever perpetrated on our people by the party opposite, the graduated pension scheme, and brings in a proper one.
When this National Assistance Measure, or social security Measure as it will be, becomes law—we all like euphemistic terms these days, but I welcome this Bill—our people will get a good pension, and social security, or National Assistance as it is now, will revert to what Lord Beveridge intended it to be, a safety net for those who for the minimum amount of time fall between all the stools, so that they can get the social security pension.
Unlike the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford, I do not want to encourage people to go on working after retiring age because they need more money to supplement their meagre pensions. I do not want the old people to have to work as petrol pump attendants, and so on, and be a form of cheap labour. I believe that work is a curse visited on man. The sooner I can retire with a good pension the better I shall like it. I shall acquire sufficient expertise in the art of retirement. The trouble with working-class people is that they have always had to work. They have not had opportunities for leisure, with the result that people say that when their working days are over they do not know what to do with their time. Our party will help these people.
My mother was one of those unfortunate people who, before the war, were the recipients of the Tory idea of social justice. The Tories have, however, since been converted to the idea of social security. Every Thursday morning my mother—and a number of other unfortunate people—had to present herself to receive Public Assistance. She was made to feel that she was getting Public Assistance. When I debated this matter with my Tory opponent, he talked absolute claptrap, because it is the fact that the Tory Party is identified with belittling the dignity of ordinary people. My mother had to present herself to receive Public Assistance, and the people in authority applied the rules very vigorously indeed. I hope that I shall not be misunderstood as being intolerant if I say that they do not now have to worry about the central heating failing.
Our party gave ordinary people a little dignity by one simple measure. We said to them, "You do not have to come here every week and present yourself, come hail, rain, or snow. Fill in this form and we will give you a pension book". That simple measure gave these people the dignity which they had never had under the Tories, and in this Bill we are taking the process a stage further. I believe that the supplementary pension, which we now call the National Assistance pension, will be available on one book together with the contributory pension which people are entitled to draw.
I welcome, too, the option which the individual will have of saying, "I should like the officer who will be responsible for carrying out the investigation"—because, obviously, there will have to be some form of investigation—"to come to my house, but if that is not possible I will go to the office and make an appointment to see him". Everything will be done with dignity. This is a further improvement which our party has always had in mind.
We want to restore dignity to people who do not want to receive this kind of assistance, whatever euphemistic term we may use for it. They want to be like the top-hat people. They want a proper pension, but if they must have this kind of supplementary assistance, let it be given with the greatest possible dignity. It is this party, and this party alone, which has regard to that aspect of the matter.
I regard it as brass-faced impudence on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite when I hear them say that this was a Tory Bill. They say that the Bill is a good one, and that my right hon. Friend has stolen another of their good ideas. We have heard this time and again since the 1964 General Election. According to them they had enough good ideas to sink a battleship. Perhaps I should say to sink an aircraft carrier—the one they promised to build, but did not.
The trouble is that the ideas remained ideas throughout the time when the Tories were in omnipotent power. They failed to bring in the social legislation which we finally brought in, even though we had an extremely small majority in the House. We must continue to remind hon. Gentlemen opposite that they could have done all these things during the 13 years that they were in offce, but did not do so. That is why I say that it is brass-faced impudence to say that we have stolen Tory ideas. We are continually coming across the spectacle of Tory hearts bleeding for ordinary people. The trouble is that the bleeding started only when they found their backsides on those benches.

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: Would not my hon. Friend agree that the reason why hon. Gentleman opposite have no concept of this problem is that this is basically a working-class one, and they have no concept of the working classes?

Mr. McGuire: I tried to make that point earlier in my speech, and my hon. Friend has reinforced what I said.
Because so many hon. Members wish to take part in the debate, we have a duty to be brief in our speeches, and I think that it will be agreed that, generally, I have observed that dictum, but there are one or two other matters to which I should like to refer before sitting down.
Mention has been made to-day of non-pensioners. I have a great deal of sympathy for these people, but I have more sympathy for the old workmen's compensation cases, the people who, in spite of my right hon. Friend's attempts to bring social justice to those who were receiving a certain amount of the old workmen's compensation benefits, will remain outside this scheme. The reason I have more sympathy for them than for the non-pensioners is that many non-pensioners did not join the scheme when they had the opportunity to do so.
On the other hand, many of the old workmen's compensation cases have not benefitted even from my right hon. Friend's generosity, and only last week I sent her a letter dealing with such a case. The kind of person about whom I am thinking is the man who, as a young boy, lost a leg, but because of the system of assessing wages received no compensation.
Some of these people have had to go through life with tremendous disabilities. Some have lost an arm, or a leg, or perhaps been even more severely injured, but have received not a copper coin as compensation. There was nothing that they could do about it. I sincerely hope that when there is this comprehensive investigation into providing a real measure of social security a way will be found to deal with this problem, and to accord these men some measure of social justice.
I hope that great publicity will be given to this measure so that it will be clear whom we intend should benefit from it. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend's efforts in the Press, on television, and so on, to let people know what benefits are available to them. We should pay great attention to this matter. If possible, we should try to express it in simple language. Most hon. Members agree that they often have the greatest difficulty in understanding legal jargon—though if they were asked to express various provi-

sions in more simple language they would find that just as difficult.
The Sunday newspaper the People recently boasted, quite justifiably, that, through its organisation designed to help ordinary people to get their just deserts and rewards, it had obtained £1,400 on behalf of a woman which she would not otherwise have obtained. I want to pay a tribute to all the daily and Sunday papers which have a special department to help ordinary people receive their just rewards and all the benefits to which they are entitled. They do a good job and we should acknowledge it.
In the case to which I have referred the officers of the Ministry were not aware that the various changes which had taken place meant that the woman was entitled to a benefit from which she had been previously debarred. I hope that my right hon. Friend will reinforce my plea that we should do away with the need for such a newspaper to boast that it has obtained a certain sum on behalf of a woman who was not being paid it because of a lack of knowledge in the Department concerned.
I hope that we shall soon have the reports of the various Commissions—and especially the Royal Commission on Labour. I hope that this will do something to alleviate the distress we feel at the fact that Section 10 still penalises many people, in connection with labour disputes. I hope that this matter can be examined.
With those remarks I welcome the Bill.

7.42 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Worsley: The hon. Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) said something which, whatever he thinks about hon. Members on this side, will be echoed by all hon. Members, namely, that the purpose of the Bill is to increase the dignity with which people can receive money from the State. The hon. Member is wrong in his appreciation of the Conservative attitude to these matters. He is also wrong in regarding this as a working-class problem. He should know that as a result of inflation the incidence of hardship falls not simply upon the working class.
We have had one or two "firsts" in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) said that this was the first time that she had addressed the


House while wearing glasses. From the speech she made it is evident that she saw her notes very clearly, and we hope to hear more from her in similar circumstances. Also, the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) addressed the House for the first time. I cannot claim to be doing that. Nobody can claim to be in that condition twice. But I can claim that I am addressing the House for the first time as Member of Parliament for Chelsea. I hope that I may be excused for saying what an immense honour it is to represent such an historic and charming part of London—a constituency which is well know throughout the world far a lively way of life.
I follow a man—Captain Litchfield—who was liked and respected throughout the House. He was a sailor, and a man of complete integrity. He devoted himself to the welfare of his constituents and was well known for the personal care which he took. He is very much missed. He will be pleased that I addressed the House for the first time as the hon. Member for Chelsea on the subject of personal welfare.
Like many of my hon. Friends I regard the Bill with somewhat mixed feelings. Clearly the increase in the real benefit—all of which goes where it is needed—is welcomed, but the Bill purports to be more than this. The right hon. Lady made that clear. For years there has been a great build-up about the radical changes which were to take place. The Minister without Portfolio has been sitting there, slightly ominously in the seat of the Patronage Secretary, listening to the debate and looking inscrutable. He has not joined in. I wish he would.
Some years ago the right hon. Gentleman went up a mountain into a thick cloud to contemplate. We await from him a new dispensation. This is supposed to be the first instalment of the new dispensation. To my way of thinking, it is not so much a question of the tablets of stone as a chip off the old block. There has been a great deal of renaming, but the function and powers of the renamed Ministries and boards are not very different from what they were.
The people who will be invited to go along will not be taken in by the difference in the names. The hon. Member for Ince spoke of the importance of simplicity, and pointed out that the age at which

many people are confronted with the problem that we are discussing this afternoon is the age when they find it a little more difficult to understand new ideas. It is critically important that in all we do in this matter we should make the provisions as simple and as intelligible as possible. It does not help simply to change names. I would have welcomed such a change had it really signified a radical rethinking of the kind that my hon. Friends and I have been pressing for, but many people will merely be confused.
I echo the tributes which have been paid to the officers of the National Assistance Board. The Board is at least well known, and we must realise that in changing its name in this way we will create confusion. I know that there are compensating advantages, but I hope that someone will take up the challenge and produce less of a tongue-twister than the Supplementary Benefits Commission. I should like to see a much more comprehensive Ministry. The right hon. Lady answered, to her satisfaction but not to mine, the general point that the subject of health should be dealt with in this extended Ministry. Her arguments were shallow. The case for this is a very strong one, and I hope that the Minister who winds up the debate will have more to say about it.
It is essential that local authorities should be regarded as being in the forefront in these matters, but it would be infinitely more efficient if behind all the activities of local authorities there was one comprehensive Ministry which carried out a really constructive form of research across the whole field—a Ministry of People, perhaps.
I reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Melton said about the family whose earnings, including family allowances, are below the scales of National Assistance. I should have thought, as did my hon. Friend, that it would be possible to produce a system of variable family allowances for such people. It is regrettable that the only action taken by the Government so far in this matter is to impose a Selective Employment Tax which will make the employment of these people particularly difficult. It is a negative and destructive attitude to take.
I end on a note of personal prejudice. I do not know whether it will in any way commend itself to the House. I


should like to ask the Government on what basis the present differentiation between single and married benefit or pension is based. Is it based on careful research into needs, or is it—as I suspect —based simply on precedent, on the principle that this sort of relationship was laid down in the years after the war, when the National Insurance and National Assistance schemes were devised on pre-war conditions? I should like to know whether there has recently been any research into whether this relationship is right.
My guess is that it is wrong. My experience has always been that hardship most affects single people living alone. After all, common sense tells one that the expenses in a household of a single person are not so immensely different from those in the household of a married person. A great range of expenses are the same. Perhaps a higher expenditure on fuel would be needed by a single person living on his own. I am told by people better qualified to know than I am that to produce a meal for two does not cost exactly twice as much as to prepare a meal for one.
I believe that the relationship between these two figures is wrong. I strongly suspect that, if serious research were carried out—this is the sort of task which a comprehensive Ministry should be undertaking—we should find that the relationship between these two scales should be altered. I hope that we can be told tonight, before we give the Bill a Second Reading—as I hope we shall—what the relationship is.
There are many other issues which many of us would like to discuss and I hope that we shall have a really extensive Committee stage in which to discuss the Bill's provisions so that the time which we have lost today—it amounts to two hours—may be amply made up.

7.52 p.m.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown: I do not intend to follow in detail the speech of the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley). He has reached a staggering conclusion that it is cheaper for two to live together than for one to live on his own. I do not know whether or not this is radical rethinking, but I honestly cannot understand what he meant by a Ministry of People——

Mr. Worsley: I should not like there to be any misunderstanding. What I was querying—no more than that—was the relationship between single and married benefit. The hon. Gentleman is misunderstanding me if he thinks that I was suggesting that it is cheaper for a single person. I was suggesting that, if we examined the matter carefully, we might want to narrow the gap.

Mr. Brown: I had better accept some of the blame for any misunderstanding. What I meant was that the hon. Gentlemen's conclusion was that it does not cost twice as much for two people. That is not a very staggering conclusion to reach and does not need much research.
This has been an interesting debate. I always find it fascinating to hear two hon. Lady Members battling it out from the Front Benches. I have had a long acquaintance with my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) and I am well aware of her personality, charm and ability. I must confess that this was the first occasion on which I have heard the hon. Lady the Minister for Melton (Miss Pike) speaking in the House and I found her most attractive. In case that reads badly, I had better say that this applies not to her attraction as a sex kitten, but to her ability to present a rather doubtful case.
She did extremely well with her glasses. It is a pity that she did not enjoy the benefit of the stimulation which she might have received if she could have seen some of us on these benches, or perhaps been provoked by us, as she would say. Hers was the traditional argument of an Opposition. She said that she was concerned about old people becoming used to the uselessness and loneliness of old age. I would suggest that she will have plenty of time to get used to the loneliness of the benches opposite—[An HON. MEMBER: "Look at yours."]—I was not talking about the relative emptiness of the opposite sides of the House, but about the position in the next four or five years.
I did not find the hon. Lady's speech particularly constructive. I was disappointed. It is true that some of the ideas in the Bill were mentioned in the Conservative Party's manifesto, but that


is a very dangerous line to take. Figures for 1963 show that even then, after 12 years of Conservative rule, the gap between the poorest section of the community and even average wage-earners had widened. To put it another way, it was well known in 1963 that about 7½ million people were living at or below at National Assistance Board scales. It is no wonder that hon. Members opposite are laying themselves open to charges of hypocrisy, when this fact was known after they had had 12 years of complete power.
It is no good begging the question and making slick Parliamentary debating points to the effect that we are not doing enough in the shortest possible time——

Miss J. M. Quennell: Could the hon. Gentleman give the source for the figure which he quoted of 7½ million known in 1963?

Mr. Brown: Yes, the source was the Ministry of Labour's survey of household expenditure for 1963.
Nevertheless, it now seems to be accepted that there is a tremendous problem. Of course, this gives rise to all sorts of social problems. Inequality always breeds aggression. Whether it is in the Rhondda Valley or in Rhodesia, one can expect trouble if people have a sense of injustice or inequality or feel themselves inadequate in any way to the rest of the community. Different people take different steps to escape from the realities of the life which they find difficult to accept.
I was amazed by the speech of the Leader of the Opposition at Birmingham, in which he discovered that the poverty in our midst would take a long time to abolish in a world which we had been led to believe was full of opportunity and plenty for everyone. Apparently, he had only just discovered the problem. I do not want to be too hard on him because we can all sometimes become prisoners of our own slogans. Such a slogan is the phrase "means test", or the necessity to use some kind of examination of need before dishing out public money.
This is a very dangerous philosophy for hon. Members opposite, because it strikes me as being subversive, Marxist-

Leninist thinking to use the phrase, "To provide most care for those in need". They never finish that phrase by quoting Lenin properly and saying, "From each according to his ability". They always boggle at the unpopular line of perhaps making charges on the community. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) said that the community would not stand for increased taxes, which is what we mean by finding the will to solve some of the problems which we know exist. In this context, we must all welcome the Bill.
There are, of course, practical difficulties. There is always the danger that this could be regarded as our having just changed the name on the notice board which hangs outside the National Assistance Board's office or the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance office. However, the public are quite intelligent about such a danger and time and the way people are handled——

Mr. Simon Wingfield Digby: Very patronising.

Mr. Brown: I am not being patronising but suggesting that the public are intelligent enough to realise that just changing the name of a Department does not necessarily mean that everything that goes on inside has also been changed. However, genuine improvements are made by the Bill, including the different scales, the disregards, the method of keeping capital resources, the additional people who will be receiving benefits for long-term sickness, and so on, and the new way in which people will be treated when they make claims. These are all important steps forward and the public will recognise that something worth while is being introduced.
However, we are breaching the real basis of a contributory scheme and I counsel my hon. and right hon. Friends not to be too hasty about coming to conclusions when we might need to face up to a complete revolution both in our thinking and in the administration of such schemes in the future. We must consider whether it is worth while spending enormous sums on staff and so on when we have now breached the contributory basis for making allowances and when, therefore, this is the time to take a long, cool look at possible developments in the future.
Whatever ideas may come out of the new Department or from the Commission, in the long term the men and women working in the new offices will determine the respect which the Department obtains from the public. The National Assistance Board unfortunately has a bad record in the sense of having to employ a high percentage of temporary staff simply because it is not a popular Department in the Civil Service. I should like to think that in future a scheme will be introduced whereby people in the Civil Service who have genuine concern for the human problems with which this Department deals will have an opportunity to transfer to it and work on solving these social problems.
I should equally like to think that the managers of these offices will give more talks to local organisations. I am aware of their commitments, but in last year's Report we learned that they gave only 1,400 talks covering more than 400 area offices. This means that each manager gave three or four talks a year. I am not criticising them for this, but merely pointing out that this is a public relations sphere, which could be of great importance.
The Appendix to the last Report of the National Assistance Board gave an indication of the new thinking and approach that is afoot—the genuine concern that comes out of even official blue books. We see the greater awareness that exists of the needs of the unfortunate people with inadequate personalities, those who are maladjusted, physically or mentally, and the many others who need help and who are in our midst. I am confident that the Bill will be welcomed by most thinking members of the community, who will realise that it makes a genuine contribution towards solving some of the problems that exist.

8.4 p.m.

Miss J. M. Quennell: I am sure that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) will forgive me if I do not comment on his main argument. However, he hit on one matter—the difficulty of obtaining statistics and data which enable one to arrive at an overall picture of the real need that exists in our society today—and I will return to that later in my remarks.
The hon. Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) made a statement which should, perhaps, be corrected immediately. He said that, as a result of the Bill, the National Assistance officers would be treating with far more dignity those who required assistance and sought it from the Board. He said that it would be possible for officers to interview applicants in their homes and that greater discretion would be possible. It should be pointed out that these facilities already exist and that members of the public who wish to do so may be interviewed privately.
In my experience—from talking with people who have sought these facilities—in each case satisfaction has been expressed, as well as gratitude for the officers who, I have been told, have shown tact and discretion. It is appropriate, since this debate is, in effect, presiding over the demise of the National Assistance Board, to pay a tribute to the Board's officers and staff for the thoroughness, tact and discretion which they have employed. It is proper that the House should acknowledge that in many cases they have had an unenviable task to perform.
Not always have those who have applied to the Board for assistance been entitled to it. The officers have, therefore, had to use great tact and discretion when deciding between genuine and alleged need. Only in those cases where claims have not been genuine has rancour been expressed by applicants who, I believe, have often made allegations of a most disgraceful nature. Thus, the Board's officers have had a far from enviable task, which, nevertheless, they have performed with tact, patience and humanity.
Although a genuine welcome has been given to the Bill, every speaker today has expressed certain reservations about it and I, too, have some to express, and in very much the same vein. For example, the Measure places no responsibility on the State to seek out those areas of poverty in the midst of busy and prosperous parts of society. There seems to be no attempt—if there is, I have been unable to discern it—to establish a national or State research unit which will sensitively and flexibly seek out changing social needs, remembering


that we are living in a rapidly changing society.
The Bill will not be of help to the very senior citizen. I cannot think of a better phrase for them. Apart from the 9s. a week, it will not be of great assistance to them. Another group totally overlooked by society until now, to whom it will not be of great help are the handicapped and incapacitated married women. The children of these women who are living on amounts below the National Assistance Board's scales have already been referred to and we have been shown how the Bill fails to help them, in addition to the very old.
If we take the definition of "poverty" as the National Assistance Board scales, we see that there is some confusion about the number of families with children who are living on income below the Board's scales. The Minister said that her right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour reckoned that there were between 200,000 and 300,000 families involved here, but the Minister of Labour has a persistent hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Mapp), who, on 22nd February of last year, asked him what estimate he had made of the numbers involved. The Minister's Answer was guarded and cautious, for he said:
The only figures at present available to me are based on a very small sample and are subject to wide margins of error"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February 1965; Vol. 707, c.2.]
He then gave the figures of between 100,000 and 200,000. His persistent hon. Friend asked a similar Question on 26th July of last year and received the following reply:
… the figures available"—
the Minister was equally guarded on this occasion
are based on a very small sample and are subject to wide margins of error."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th July, 1965; Vol. 717, c. 5.]
On that occasion the Minister gave figures which indicated that the numbers had gone up. He said that there were between 150,000 and 250,000 such families. What is of importance is the very guarded nature of the Minister's Answer. He thinks that there are wide margins of error possible and this is perfectly understandable. This reveals the necessity for more actions of a positive nature.
The right hon. Lady says that the figure has perhaps gone up to 300,000, but in both Answers the Minister reckoned that the number of children involved in each family was about three. We might have a very large proportion, getting towards 1 million, of children living below National Assistance scales. We do not know. This is the weakness of our position, because we do not know the size of the problem with which we are dealing.
Of the special problems I can touch on only one, that of the handicapped housewife. No one knows how many of them there are. The Minister of Health has been most co-operative and helpful when I have questioned him; so has the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, but we cannot get the information to examine this problem constructively. We have to rely entirely on private foundations providing small random surveys of all sorts. One is taken aback when the Minister tells us that the survey of 2,750 families to be started and completed in June will provide sufficient information. I wonder how she knows which families to start with.
The handicapped married woman, handicapped either through disease or disaster, is in a parlous condition. She is never entitled to National Assistance. It is not available to her, nor to her husband. No matter how severely disabled she is nor how sadly her family's circumstances decline, she cannot ever claim the subsistence. She can receive no other form of State benefit except medical treatment. She is not eligible for State insurance unless she becomes gainfully employed outside her home and then she is eligible only for Class III insurance. Private insurance is almost impossible for her. Insurance-wise a married woman is looked upon as a bad risk.
If her husband claims his full entitlement to fiscal relief, I believe he can obtain an allowance of £35, but it is estimated that the cost of maintaining a handicapped woman at home is £650 a year. If his earnings do not put him in a position to claim the full allowance, the husband cannot go to the National Assistance Board for help. These families are in a very difficult position. No wonder that the Oxford Regional Hospital Group survey of chronic sick beds


in Northants County Borough revealed that 34 per cent. of the chronically sick and disabled could return home if suitable social provision were available for them. We have a situation in which perhaps one in three chronically sick beds could be vacated and their occupants returned home if suitable provision were available and could be afforded. But we do not know the size of the problem.
The weakness of the Bill is that it does nothing to ascertain these needs. The State requires a weapon whereby we can discover poverty in our midst. Most unfortunately, this Bill does not provide one. There is no additional instrument to detect areas of hardship. This is a critical weakness. It seems absurd that in this day and age in our sophisticated society the state has still to rely on private foundations doing surveys to give a hint of what we should do to help society. It is necessary for the data to be fully and freely evailable centrally. Any hon. Member who has tried to get information of this kind, which should be available, retires frustrated and nonplussed because we simply do not know how to get the information.
It is possibly available, but not centrally in one Ministry and there is no way of collating the information available in various Ministries. Yet the amount of information available to the Registrar-General must be incredible. There are critical weaknesses because we need a national research unit to inquire into our national needs. We have a mobile society, our social pattern is changing rapidly; a nationally sensitive apparatus is necessary for the State to detect developing areas of hardship before they become established and formidable. It is very likely that we shall have formidable problems to tackle before we know where they are.
I have had to gallop through this speech and I apologise for the rapidity of my delivery. I welcome the Bill and hope that we shall have time to go into it in more detail in Committee. It has been rather unfortunate that today we could not spend more time over it. With these provisions and reservations, I welcome the Bill and hope that the right hon. Lady will be able to give answers in

Committee if her hon. Friend has not time to give them tonight.

8.18 p.m.

Mr. Eric Moonman: I am grateful that the hon. Lady the Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell) galloped through her speech. I shall try to emulate her performance, or at least, her speed. The Bill is impressive because it reflects a great deal of important thinking by research workers and practitioners in the social service field who have been concerned with social problems for a number of years. It also introduces structural changes which are very necessary and which stem from that thinking.
It deals with the question of poverty and hardship and there can be no more important issue we can debate in this House than the state of the under-privileged in this country. I regret that we have not had sufficient time to debate this fully. It is a pity that hon. Members on both sides of the House have not been able to itemise their criticisms and the points which they believe important in the Bill. Nevertheless, it is a subject which divides the House in the approach of hon. Members to it.
I remind hon. Members opposite that in February we had a statement by the Conservative Party which perhaps suggested exactly where it stood on this important issue of poverty. It said:
Whenever possible, people should be encouraged to make provision for themselves rather than lean on the State.
It may be that this is a view or philosophy which hon. Members opposite now wish to discount. Certainly, there has been some withdrawal from that type of thinking in some of the speeches we have heard today.
The hon. Member for Melton (Miss Pike), as she said, is a hard-headed realist and she is concerned that we should refer again to the means test. These are strong words, but she was prepared to justify them. The words underline the important differences in attitude towards this subject. I would object to any suggestion that a means test is a viable proposition in a modern State. What we are trying to do in the Bill is to relate the National Assistance Board to something which has already formed an integral part in our society, namely, that of National Insurance.
The statement from the Conservative Party which mentions individual responsibility contrasts vividly with the first paragraph in the introduction of the Explanatory Memorandum prepared by the Ministry, which says:
The purpose of the charges is to eliminate those features of the existing scheme which are misunderstood or disliked, while preserving the humanity and efficiency of its administration. The Government believe this will ensure that the elderly will have no hesitation in claiming the new benefit to which they are untitled and which will be awarded with dimity.
This is a very important difference. The Labour Party is proud to pursue this difference.
The question of the dignity of the individual is all-important. The National Assistance Board and all the agencies which preceded it were doomed to fail. How could it succeed when many of those who were entitled to claim National Assistance had been nurtured and encouraged to think in terms of the way that charity vas apportioned in the last century?
This is why the figures presented by the Minister at the beginning of the debate will cause grave concern. She disclosed that many people who were entitled to claim assistance, but who failed to do so. If I had the time I could give several case studies from my own constituency. Briefly, I would mention one widow who was fully entitled to claim assistance yet did not do so because she felt it would be like begging. Her circumstances were quite dreadful. In another case, an elderly spinster, who was in great distress, felt that she could manage quite well, and yet she was fully entitled to obtain assistance.
We have not been able to overcome the difficulties. It is not just a difference of semantics associated with the 700,000 people who could claim but do not. Clearly the National Assistance Board carried with it features of the label of "the parish" and this was an unpleasant experience for many people that I knew in Liverpool in the 'thirties. I believe that the Bill will go some way towards overcoming these obstacles.
I am very glad that the Minister said that the nation must be prepared to pay for these improvements in the social services. I hope that this will be spelled out in all sorts of ways. We cannot think in

terms of having improvements in the social services, unless we are prepared to pay for them. Unless the Government are able to convince the nation that these improvements will depend on extra effort and initiative, we shall fail in improving the fabric of our social life and this would reflect on the Bill.
Structure is important. I hope that there will be further attempts in other Ministries to draw together related work. This is the sort of game which could be played if there were time, but the mind boggles at the amount of work which is certainly not logically drawn between Ministries.
I have some reservations here. This is a new concept and a striking one. I believe that we still have not gone far enough in the Bill nor was it stated in the Minister's remarks that we understand the problem of poverty. There are difficulties about assessing the exact figure. I support the previous speaker's references to the difficulties involved. We could probably use the National Assistance Board's references to poverty —where income is less than that laid down by the N.A.B. scales.
Whether we accept one figure or another, we are dealing with one particular social problem, namely, those children of poverty families. The figure involved is half a million children and I am concerned because such condition and poverty affect their diet, the sort of education they get and their environment.
It would be a great tragedy if, at this important moment in our history, with great technological advances taking place and with great changes in knowledge and individual social behaviour, we approved the Second Reading of a Bill whilst ignoring the fact that about half a million children are in danger of becoming second-class citizens.
There are many things I should like to say. I shall try to gallop along as quickly as the previous speaker did. I hope that in replying to the debate the Minister will say whether he is aware of the Child Poverty Act Group's memorandum, which contains rather important suggestions. One is the proposal to abolish the child tax allowance and to replace the existing family allowance by a tax-free allowance. Another is to channel help to the large family with a


low income by the benefit of tax allowances. These proposals will be known to the Ministry. I should like to know whether they are acceptable to the Government.
I also hope that the new local advisory committees will be given the opportunity of meeting senior officials to discuss their new function. One of the great problems in creating a new service is to ensure that we do not simply transplant names and offices without getting at the work which is being done. I hope that, in addition to simply sending members to the new committees concerned, because the composition will be largely drawn from the old committees, that consideration will be given to arranging regional and local conferences at which the members could get together to discuss their new rôle.
There are other aspects involving the social services. One is the new developments arising from industry and some areas of commerce—cost effectiveness and cost benefit analysis. I hope that the Minister will make some comments on this. There is also the additional responsibility of the recruitment of the officers. This has been a great problem for the Board, because it has never been quite clear whether those concerned are meant to be civil servants or case workers. We must be quite clear about what, sort of responsibility they will have in the new set-up. This would be possible if we were able to ignore the specific task under the National Assistance Board, but I do not think that we can afford to now in creating the new Ministry. I should like guidance on this.
Another question is the role of the Commission. I hope that it will be the sort of important centre of the scheme which the Minister mentioned. It will obviously need to look at the other services provided, and it may be that here we must think in terms of widening the basis of the social services. I hope that the Commission itself, especially if it is to include a number of people who are outside government, people who are concerned with the social services in a research capacity, will look at the way in which the social services could be properly integrated, and not simply on the basis of these two Ministries.
I join in the general expression of appreciation of the work done by the

National Assistance Board officers. They have done extremely good work. No one who has had any dealings with them could doubt that.
I am a little chary about the desire for more research. It happens in all fields that we are reaching the point, whether in industry or whether in the social services, where there is a natural and healthy desire to become involved in research. My reading of this—I have had some experience in the field of social research, in the particular field that we are discussing now, as well as in industry —is that the problem is not so much to get more research.
The problem is to ensure that we can translate the results of the research into a meaningful form. I put it in this way. There is already enough research material which could well be acted upon by the Ministries. There is a whole series of individual projects going on in London alone which could be taken up. We must ensure that the practitioners are able to use all this as a practical tool.
I hope that the clear emphasis throughout the service will be on preventing poverty and preventing the ills and sicknesses, and that from time to time this whole subject will be considered by the Commission.

8.28 p.m.

Mr. John Pardoe: I welcome the Bill as far as it goes, and I welcome particularly the Government's firm acceptance that there is a great deal of poverty in the country. Sometimes, when talking to people in the constituencies, particularly people on the Right in politics, one has the impression that the affluent society has somehow dispensed with all manifestations of poverty. Yet one knows that this is not so. Patterns of poverty are changing rapidly, and there is a great need to keep our welfare services in line with the changing pattern. The Bill goes some way towards doing this.
I come now to certain questions which, I hope, the Minister will answer in order to clarify points of doubt. First, is this a non-contributory pension? The right hon. Lady said that she wanted to overcome the feeling that there was something inferior about non-contributory pensions, that a stigma was attached to them. We all know that this feeling does exist


among many people, but I doubt that the Bill really gives the answer to that problem. The answer, surely, is to do away with all contributions. The contributions do not pay for our pensions or for our social security system. The idea of contributions paying for pensions is already a myth. If we abolished the myth of the contributory pension, we should have no real need for the Bill at all.
The right hon. Lady wants people to realise that there is a statutory right to a non-contributory pension. Unfortunately, there is no statutory right. Even after the passage of the Bill, there will not be a statutory right in any real sense. A person will still have to establish his ease to receive the non-contributory pension.
The right hon. Lady said that, if the nation wills the means, we shall have a social security system of which we can be really proud. If the nation is prepared to will the means, we must have a method of financing our social security system which is superior to the one we have now. The present method, which turns us into a nation of stamp lickers, is not a particularly efficient way of financing social security. In fact, it is a poll tax, and, so far as it finances anything at all, a poll tax is inefficient a nd non-dynamic simply because it applies to everyone and has to be set at a rate which can be afforded by the lowest paid.
I hope that we shall work towards a social security tax related to earnings and, therefore, related to levels of earnings particularly in the different regions, a most important aspect of the matter. I should like to see this social security tax cover all the social services, perhaps even bringing the Selective Employment Tax within it, with about one-third being paid by the employee and about two-thirds paid by the employer. This would, in a sense, be taken as a percentage of the payroll.
What about the guaranteed income which the Bill is intended to introduce? Again, I quarrel with the phrasing. It is not a guaranteed income because it is not related to the cost of living. The income guaranteed today will not be a guaranteed income of the same size next year or the year after. It would be far better to link this in the Bill now to

rising prices or, better still, to rising average wage rates. Otherwise, we shall have to come back year after year to beg the Government to give us a little more money in order to raise the rates. Why not have this built into the Bill now? It is not in the real sense guaranteed income as now proposed. The right hon. Lady said that awards will be assessed annually, to take account of changes in individual financial circumstances. Cannot we provide in the Bill for annual review to take account of the cost of living and rising prosperity?
Next, the wage-stop. The Minister said that the Bill made no contribution towards solving the problem of low-wage earners whose families live below the poverty line. This is an enormous problem. It may not have been very well researched, but it has been researched to a certain extent. I am sure that the right hon. Lady is aware of certain work of the London School of Economics and Professor Titmuss, which has painted the problem very clearly.
It is a problem particularly in areas such as the one I represent in Cornwall. We have very low wages in Cornwall and, because they are low, our wage rates are closely akin to the sort of rates which people will have under the Bill. There are masses of children living below what all of us on either side of the House must call the poverty line. The right hon. Lady's promise to solve this problem is most welcome, but it will be done only by paying real attention to the giving of proper benefits to wives and children. This is the way forward. I shall not go into detail on the Liberal plans for doing this. There will be ample occasions in future for that.
The right hon. Lady said that many elderly people have not been able to make proper provision for their old age and she hoped that the Bill would help them. That is true, but an enormous number of people, particularly in Cornwall, who are now in employment and who are perhaps only 30 or 40 or 50 years old, still cannot even now make provision for their old age because their wages are far too low. Indeed, wages are far too low in many parts of the country.
In one large rural area in my constituency the treasurer of the rural district council has estimated that 70 per cent.


of all ratepayers will be liable for rate relief. That gives some idea of the kind of income level there. Such people cannot make provision for their old age. This is a contemporary problem. It is not only the problem of the old people who could not make provision in the 1920s and 1930s.
The right hon. Lady said that the new Commission will be a source of advice, a power house of ideas. It will also do research. I have grave reservations about the membership. There is the membership of the so-called "statutory women". I hope that the Bill does not limit the number of women who can serve on the Commission. Let it not do that, because a great many of the problems it will have to solve will be of concern to women—particularly problems of widows and of children.
I hope that far more women than just the two proposed will be members of the Commission. It is sometimes said that, if men had babies, abortion would have been legal long ago. To a certain extent, also, it is true that if men were ever widows many of these problems would have been solved a long time ago.
My major reservation is that the basic rate is still far too low—£4 10s. for a single person. Even taking account of rates and rent, it is still an appallingly low level on which to live. I draw the right hon. Lady's attention to the basic minimum requirements stated by the John Lewis Partnership, in its Gazette of 19th February. This is an example of what the partnership accepts as a criterion. The levels are substantially above those in the Bill. For a single person, the criterion is £6 5s. a week.
We in the Liberal Party believe that the criterion should be half the average national wage. I am not saying that we should raise it to that level immediately —I know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has his problems—but that is what we should work towards. If we were to raise the basic rate to that kind of level, we would eventually have no need for these non-contributory pensions.
There will be the problem of the retraining of staff of the Ministry and of the National Assistance Board. They have been using different methods in their work, with different levels of training. Has the right hon. Lady given enough time

for the retraining and for the recruitment which will perhaps have to take place?
Another aspect is the accommodation in which the work is to be done, particularly the accommodation to which people will be invited to answer questions. That accommodation should be good. We must give these people the red carpet treatment. They must not have to go to a fusty little office in a back street. They must be able to go to offices that are welcoming and comfortable. I hope that the right hon. Lady has left herself sufficient time to find such offices, or at least to redecorate present offices up to such a standard. With the amalgamation of these two functions, we must not lose the human touch. Many hon. Members have paid tribute to the very good work which has been done by officers of the National Assistance Board. They have done this work magnificently. It has been of tremendous value and we must not lose this value now that we are amalgamating these two functions.
Looking further ahead, we may need some sort of regional welfare board to co-ordinate all the services which local authorities and the Ministry will be offering. The local government basis in many parts of the country is not suitable for standing the strain, which is why I propose a regional basis.
I want, finally, to refer to the Selective Employment Tax which is relevant in the sense that it will provide the Ministry with many extra customers, particularly from Cornwall. There is no doubt about that and I ask the right hon. Lady again to press her right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make sure that it does not happen. There are large areas of the country where there is a great deal of part-time employment and very low wages, and because the Selective Employment Tax is a poll tax and not related to the level of wages in an area, areas like Cornwall will be far worse hit than others.
The Bill comes from the heart of the Labour body politic and that is an organ of that body which I trust rather more than I trust its head, from which no doubt the Selective Employment Tax sprang. There is a song which suggests that the knee bone is connected to the backbone. Any connection between the heart which produced this Bill and the head which produced the Selective Employment Tax is not immediately evident.

8.42 p.m.

Mr. Peter Archer: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister on seizing this opportunity to mitigate, by increasing the amount of small savings which are to be disregarded, what has been a major source of hardship. There are many couples who, by thrift and hard work over the years, acquire a nest egg, only to find in what is sometimes a very short period of misfortune that virtually years of savings disappear.
These couples are models of the kind mentioned by hon. Members opposite. They do not seek to lean on the State, and yet at the end of it they are in virtually the same position as the thriftless and the lazy. These days it is quite properly fashionable to speak of incentives to work. There is no greater disincentive than a means test and this generation and generations to come will have reason to be grateful to my right hon. Friend for this provision about disregards.
I shall briefly invite attention to three anomalies carried over from the 1948 Act into the Bill. I can deal with the first very briefly, because it was mentioned at some length by my right hon. Friend herself and by other hon. Members. It is the position of the 200,000 to 300,000 breadwinners in full-time employment who, to our shame, are earning less than the rates set out in the Bill. I am not sure that I follow the argument that they must not be paid more to stay away than they earn at work. Surely that is precisely what we are doing now, and these people would be better off if they decided not to go to work.
I appreciate that we must not fall into the Speenhamland fallacy of providing employers with cut-rate labour on a subsidised basis, and I have never subscribed to the "less eligibility" theory, that these unhappy people will not work unless social benefits are made less attractive than the worst possible working conditions. I have always felt that this is a theory to suspect, particularly as it so often comes from the same circles as the view that the higher income groups will not pull their weight unless taxation is reduced. The argument appears to be that the rich will not work unless you make them richer, and the poor will not work unless you make them poorer.
But having said that, it appears unfair and unwise to provide that a man who is prepared to work for a low rate of remuneration in preference to charging his family to public funds should be penalised because he is doing so. We look forward, we hope at a very early date, to the results of the work which. my right hon. Friend is doing on this subject.
The second anomaly is to be found in Clauses 22 and 23 of the Bill. As I understand, the effect of these Clauses is that a man is absolutely liable to maintain his wife, and vice versa, but whether that liability is enforced in any particular circumstances is a matter entirely within the discretion of the magistrates' court before whom the matter comes. In common law, of course, a man is not liable to maintain his wife if, by her conduct, she has disentitled herself from maintenance.
This has been the way in which the similar provision in the Act of 1948 has ben interpreted by the courts. But, from the judgments in the Court of Appeal, in the case of Lilley v. Lilley, decided in 1959, that this is not necessarily so, and the weight to be given to any particular circumstance is entirely within the discretion of the magistrate's court.
So, we could have, in theory, and might have in practice—a situation where a man, whose wife left him on their wedding night for another man and has never been back since, might find himself ordered to maintain her, if the particular magistrates' court before whom the matter comes, took the view that that met the justice of the case. Similarly, with a wife who has not seen her husband sober since before the wedding breakfast. While I fully appreciate that this was not the intention of these Sections, a great deal of hardship could be averted if my right hon. Friend would give some attention to their redrafting.
Finally, may I invite attention to the anomaly mentioned briefly by my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire)? This relates to the provisions of Clause 10, which seeks to provide that a workman engaged in a trade dispute is disentitled from benefit, but he may become entitled if, among other things, he can prove that he
does not belong to a grade or class of workers of which … there were members


employed at his place of employment, any of whom are participating in or financing or directly interested in the dispute.
That appears to mean that if one has a hundred men at a place of employment, and one belongs to a union involved in a trade dispute so that, through his subscriptions, he is financing it, the whole of the men at that place of work are disentitled from for benefit.
I know that there are problems here, and I am aware that my right hon. Friend is already looking into the matter, as it was raised in the House in another connection last Session. I follow, too, that the purpose of including the provision in the Bill is to bring the situation into line with the provisions for unemployment benefit. I have raised it so that it shall not be thought that silence from these benches implies assent. I am sure that we can rely upon my right hon. Friend to look into this matter.
I hope that this will not be thought of as carping criticism. This is a first-rate Bill and I have no doubt that it will be recorded in history as a very real step forward. But, when one is dealing with a situation which, by its very nature, concerns itself with people undergoing hardship, anything which can alleviate additional hardship is worth some very real and serious thought, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree.

8.49 p.m.

Mr. Rafton Pounder: Like everyone else who has spoken today, on both sides of the House, I welcome the principles embodied in the Bill. Like my hon. Friends who have spoken, I have one or two reservations on detail concerning the Bill, which can be discussed and thrashed out when we come to the Committee stage.
I welcome the Bill not merely because of its Title, for the "up-to-dateness" of the name "Social Security" has a certain appealing ring about it. Conversely, there is a harshness to the words "Pensions and National Insurance", despite the very kindly Minister in charge. No one can doubt that in this Bill there has been an attempt at streamlining right from the word "go", but when are we to see the detailed social security review of which this is obviously the administrative precursor?
We have waited 18 months. I am sick, sore and tired of listening to "13 years" being quoted in answer to serious questions. I recall a Question which I tabled to the right hon. Lady in November, 1964, in reply to which she said that I should not have to wait very long for the review.
The Second Schedule of the Bill, apart from the interesting fiscal details, seems to indicate a tendency towards a less rigid delineation of the rules and regulations. One of the problems which I have found during my relatively short time in the House has been this. Often when a constituent approaches me with a pensions problem, I encounter a regulation which cannot be circumvented. I do not want anyone to construe that remark as meaning that I am in any way critical of the first-class staff engaged by the Ministry of Pensions and the National Assistance Board; nothing could be further from my mind. If I may refer in one sentence to the area of the right hon. Lady's Department which I know best, Northern Ireland, I have found the staff there extremely sympathetic and understanding at all times.
However, although one can stretch the rules, there comes a point when one cannot stretch them any further. So often one has encountered instances in which the moral justice of a case has been absolutely overwhelming and yet there has been, in small type, a little regulation which cannot be surmounted.
I was particularly interested in the Ministers references to National Assistance and the horror which this often conjures up in the minds of would-be beneficiaries. I hope not only that we are saying goodbye to the National Assistance Board in name, but that the phrase "supplementary pension" or "supplementary benefit" will become current usage. Almost daily I have come across people who, whenever National Assistance is mentioned, say, although they have a first-class case, "I could not accept that. My pride would be hurt", and they are prepared to suffer in silence. We have had the statistics for the country as a whole. I do not know whether it is a fair question to ask the Minister, but I should be interested to know whether she has any comparable figures for Northern Ireland.
One thing which has not been said so far—and I am glad that the words "free benefits" and phrases like it had not been used in this debate—is that the social security benefits, no matter what form they take, are something for which we have contributed during our working lives. There is no question of gift involved. This is not the bounty of a charitable Government. They are something to which we are entitled as of right and for which we contributed during the years when we were able to put something aside by way of state insurance for the unfortunate days that might lie ahead. I know that some people may say, "What is in a name?", but there is not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that the name "National Assistance Board" jars in the mind of the overwhelming majority of people.
We have to accept that there are anomalies in all legislation. That is no disrespect to the draftsmen of this or, indeed, of previous social security legislation. Such legislation seems to be dogged by more anomalies almost than any other type of legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) referred particularly to two categories—the 50-year age entitlement for widows, and the non-pensioners. I will not discuss the second category, not because they are not important, but because there is nothing new that one can say about them. But the widows who are under 50 constitute a sad anomaly which must be thrown out of the window at the earliest possible moment because, not only is there a strong social case for doing so, but additionally the financial cost involved would not be great.
Some time ago the Minister gave me the number of people who would benefit if the age of entitlement were reduced from 50 to, say, 45. She said that the number of people involved was 60,000 and that the cost would be £10 million annually. To scrap it altogether would benefit 120,000 widows and cost £20 million. I think that I am right in saying that the revenue from a ld. on the Insurance stamp is about £10 million. Surely there is nobody throughout the length and breadth of the country who would begrudge 2d. on the stamp to get rid of this wicked and very unfair anomaly in our social security legislation.
It is bad enough for a woman to lose her husband, but to find substantial financial loss coupled with it is quite appalling and extremely cruel. In the Financial Memorandum to the Bill we see that the implementation of it will cost about £51 million. I hope that something can be done for those widows to whom I have referred.
I wonder whether anything can be done, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley) said earlier this evening, about the calculations for a married couple. The argument that two can live as cheaply as one is utter nonsense. There are many old people who would truly welcome the companionship of marriage, but it is just not economically possible because of the drop of about 25 per cent. that there would be in their combined pensions, as compared with that of two single people when equated with that of married couple. Quite understandably, they are not prepared to consider this drop.
Can nothing be done to make the married rate twice that of the single rate, or, indeed, have just the single person as the basic unit and forget the one plus 50 per cent. which is now roughly the rate for a married couple?
I trust that I am right in assuming that the flexibility inherent in the measures outlined in the Bill marks the Government's thinking in all matters of social security and that there will be a greater flexibility than perhaps there has been hitherto.

8.57 p.m.

Mr. David Winnick: I am in great difficulty because of the limitation of time. I cannot say much of what I wanted to say. I intended to refer to the wage side, on which I made an intervention when my right hon. Friend the Minister was speaking.
I should like to refer to an article in last Wednesday's Daily Mail, which did a great service to the nation in itemising the case of a woman living on National Assistance. This sort of article and other articles that occasionally appear in the Press bring home the tremendous amount of poverty and near-poverty that still exists. One of the myths that has been broken in the last few years is that Britain is an affluent welfare society with just a handful of people living in great


hardship. The truth is that nearly 7 million people are living in disgraceful and disgusting poverty.
Poverty such as that in which Mrs. Seller, the subject of the Daily Mail article, lives not only shames and humiliates those who have to endure it, but shames and humiliates their fellow citizens. That is why I believe that the Bill is a step in the right direction and why I welcome it, with other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate, certainly from this side of the House. I believe that this will be considered one of the historical landmarks in social welfare legislation.
Many hon. Members, certainly among my hon. Friends, have campaigned for a guaranteed income for many years. I agree with those people who consider that the figure outlined in the Bill is rather too low, but at the same time I believe that it establishes the principle of a guaranteed income for householders, married and single people, after their rent and rates have been paid. The Minister will have to accept that over a period of time there will be a great deal of pressure, certainly from this side of the House, for the figure to be increased.
We cannot accept, and there can be no justification for accepting, that the figures outlined for married couples and single people will become permanent and a maximum. It is the beginning, the minimum step, and I hope that the Minister will recognise this. I well recognise the economic circumstances and the reason why, to a certain extent, the figure is low, but it establishes a minimum income.
My final point concerns the wage stop. What I hope we in the House of Commons recognise is that the children who are involved in such families—and I believe that nearly 60,000 children are affected by the wage stop—are being discriminated against, not only because their standard of living is so low compared with that of other people in the community, but because they will find themselves being discriminated against and at a great disadvantage when they start school.
This is why I appeal to my right hon. Friend the Minister. She referred to the fact that a great deal of research and

surveys will be done to ascertain the hidden amount of poverty which still exists. But we know about these people who are already living in poverty, who are forced to accept less than the National Assistance minimum merely because, when they work, the husband receives a wage which is lower than National Assistance.
I hope, therefore, that it will not be long before we can abolish the wage stop. I do not believe that any Socialist can justify the continuation of the present practice of this kind of discrimination against people who earn a low income. I hope that it will be possible for the wage stop to be abolished within a very short period.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I thank the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) for his extreme punctiliousness in keeping to what must, in the circumstances, have been an agonising time limit. I hope that he will have ample time in Committee to develop the various points which he would have made tonight had time allowed.
My first task must be the very pleasant one of congratulating the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) on his maiden speech and to say hew the House must have appreciated, as I did, the generous tribute which the hon. Member paid to his opponent. The hon. Member referred to the fact that he was not sure that he knew the rules of this House. I was not certain whether he found a degree of confusion between the Rugby League and the Rugby Union, with the former of which I am the more familiar.
It seems that this debate is the occasion of quite a number of "firsts". I had better join them and put on record that this is the first time that I have spoken from the Dispatch Box on the Opposition side of the House.
Those who have welcomed the Bill as a great stride forward showed in their welcome a triumph of faith over reason The Bill is, I am glad to say, a small step forward, but with a considerable pace to one side. I agree that it will go some way to removing what has been regarded as the stigma of National Assistance, going back to the old Poor Law—and a very good thing, too.
I join my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) and others who have paid tribute to the work of the officials of the National Assistance Board. Both sides have been claiming some degree of credit for the Bill. Perhaps I may contradict the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire). I do not agree, nor do I think that any hon. Member whose constituency is in the South of England will agree, that poverty is purely a working-class problem. I hope that we shall not fall into any danger of making false class distinctions, or, indeed, regional distinctions, because real poverty attacks various sorts of people in different parts of the country in different ways and they are all worthy of the help that the State and society can give.
The whole House has welcomed the Bill even if our welcome is on the basis of half a loaf being better than no bread. I do not regard it as fair to call the Bill window-dressing, because its contents go some way to solving a real problem—and there are some genuine goods in the shop. It is true that most of them seem to have been put there by the Tory manifesto. But, no matter. It is also true that, like Government are doing, it is a good idea so many of the other things that the which has been spoilt by being ill-thought out and perhaps rather hurriedly worked through. The measures are inadequate. Many hon. Members on both sides have said that, and the right hon. Lady hinted at it when she talked about practicability. She would have liked to do a great deal more.
If, all the time that the party opposite was in Opposition, it had been planning its schemes to achieve results rather than win votes, perhaps practicability would not have provided such a difficulty now. It was Burke who said:
It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
That must apply to many of the things which right hon. and hon. Members opposite have said and put in their election addresses in 1964 and 1966.
Out of a great mountain of vainglorious verbiage on these sorts of problems. we have the Bill, even though it is a rather poor, "cow'rin, tim'rous beastie."
One on the main points which have been uppermost in the propaganda of

the party opposite from time to time is propaganda against what it called the "personal test of means which is so repugnant in the present system of National Assistance." Yet the qualifications in the Bill are almost verbatim those of the 1948 Act. I agree with the Minister that the change of wording shows a very genuine change of emphasis and attitude, and I would certainly hope, with my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder), that it would spread throughout the country and go some way to reassure those who, at the moment, are too proud to seek the assistance which they have earned.
Although it shows a change of attitude, there is no change of principle. The words in section 4 of the old 1948 Act and those in Clause 4 of the new Bill are almost the same. The words in Clause 5(1) of the Bill are actually lifted verbatim from section 5(1) of the 1948 Act. If, as the Minister has claimed, "this Measure is without any form of personal means test other than that accepted by every taxpayer in the land", so were the old provisions which the party opposite said were unacceptable in a free democratic society". My hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) said in the course of her opening speech that these were new words for old things. As I say, in many cases they are not even new words. It is not something about which we on this side should take the party opposite to task in that they are increasing at this stage the number of people to whom National Assistance in the old form and the supplementary pension and allowances in the new form are going to give help. At the end of March, 1964, there were something like 1,960,000 people receiving weekly payments. On 29th March, 1966, the figure was something over 2 million. It is not the Conservative Party which has regarded that as evidence of increasing poverty in the country. We regard it, rather, as evidence of an increasing social conscience. So I think that the country and the Government are right to spend £51 million, or £64 million later, on increasing the spread and increasing the impact of the new supplementary pension and supplementary allowances.
In some senses this is a problem which will never disappear, and in some ways


it is a problem which should not disappear, because, if our society is to prosper in other ways, then the rising prosperity of the country as a whole means that we make bigger demands on behalf of the lowest income groups and those who are doing less well in the structure of our society. Thus, if this Measure is designed to deal with what one might call the bottom level of our social structure from the point of view of income, I hope that the problem will be dealt with by increasing the provision of benefits, and by raising the standard of benefit rather than by taking the existence of people using this extra benefit necessarily as evidence of a spread of poverty.
This mean test, this test of need, which is embodied in the Bill, as it was in the old Act, seems to be a rather negative test, and a test of needs in money terms only. The proposals which we put forward in our manifesto, and which we have discussed from time to time since, are for a more positive test of needs, covering the needs particularly of old people, other than purely financial, important as those are. In saying that, I must admit that I think that the Bill does not go nearly far enough, but we on this side are perhaps a little reassured by the right hon. Lady's speech. We are by no means completely reassured, because I think we would all prefer to see these provisions written into the Bill—and I say this without any disrespect to the right hon. Lady, as I am sure she will accept—rather than contained in her speech.
It is not that I suspect that the right hon. Lady—or her Department, or the Government as a whole—lacks the intention, or even the will, to carry out the various ideas which she put forward in her speech. It is simply that as a matter of general principle, and perhaps of caution, on the same argument that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, a Clause in a Bill is worth two or three assurances in a Minister's speech. After all, when the Bill becomes an Act it will be on the Statute Book until it is amended or removed. The Minister will not be there for nearly as long as a Statute.
I said that I thought we need a positive test of needs, but I think that the special problems of the elderly, their financial problems, the problems of health, of providing extra facilities to enable them to

live in their own homes where possible, the problems of companionship and so on, all of which are extremely important, should be brought within the compass of this Measure if the old people, and indeed those who are chronically sick or disabled, are to be properly integrated into our society, and not merely set aside in a corner where they do not cause worry, and people feel that as they are properly cared for and looked after financially they can forget them. They have to be brought into our society as a whole.
This involves the local authority welfare services which were covered by Part III of the 1948 Act, as well as those parts covered by the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and the old National Assistance Board. This is why we on this side of the House would have liked to have brought the Ministry of Health within the compass of the new Ministry of Social Security. This was the point developed by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley).
Even if we accept the argument of the right hon. Lady that it was too difficult at this stage—and I do not accept it—she could surely have gone some way at least to bring within the Bill those local authority provisions, such as welfare services, which were included in Part III of the 1948 Act, even if she could not persuade her colleagues it was wise to integrate the Ministry of Health within a wider and more comprehensive Social Security Ministry. Perhaps the Minister who winds up the debate will let us have his thoughts on this subject.
Part of the reason why this is so clearly important is the necessity to seek out need and to undertake a certain degree of research into the changing patterns of need. An equally important function is the coordination of the efforts of the various welfare authorities in respect of the needs of the old and those with large families, besides those who are not particularly old and do not have large families but are just not competent and cannot seem to manage on their own, no matter what is done for them. These people must still be looked after, even if it can be said that it is their own fault that they are in a mess. This does not excuse society from trying to help them.
It is the co-ordination of these various problems and the question of the different standards which obtain in different parts


of the country that make the wider Measure that we would have preferred so important. It would also make the various anomalies easier to deal with and, not least, it would enable the speed of change to be coped with more successfully. Our society is in a very mobile state at the moment, and no matter what our views as to how to cope with this problem, we must all agree that it is not easy to make certain that the efforts of society to deal with these less fortunate members are concentrated always on those whose need is greatest—including people who today are poverty-stricken from origins and the way of life which would not have had that result before. It is not the one-class problem which it might have been some years ago.
There are many anomalies, some created by the 1964 Act, some by the 1948 Act, and others dating even further back. There was one which my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea suggested might have continued out of sheer inertia, with precedent following precedent, namely, the differential between married and single rates in the assessment of requirements. I do not know whether my hon. Friend is right or wrong but I have found, in dealing with constituency problems connected with Income Tax, that tax allowances paid to married and single people respectively seemed to show too big a gap. The same situation may well exist here.
There are more anomalies, many of which have been dealt with by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen—the earnings rule, the problems created by raising the pension of the 10s. widow to 30s., the problem of the rigid application of the 50- years age limit for widows and the problem of the pensioned widow who has remarried for too short a time—that is to say, whose husband dies before the minimum three years required to enable her to regain her pension. There are also the problems concerned with maintenance.
The anomaly on which I wish to spend most time is that of the wages stop, coupled with the special problems of the low wage earner, particularly with an exceptionally large family. Despite all the strictures of hon. Gentlemen opposite when they were in Opposition about the heartlessness of the wages stop as applied by the wicked Tories, according to the

White Paper it is still carried on in the same way, embodying the current National Assistance practice. This has always been rather harsh and it is wrong that this opportunity to do something about the problem should have been let slip.
Surely the present system must inevitably lead to hardship, especially where there are large and in many cases incompetent families. A case was quoted in an open letter to the right hon. Lady in the Sunday Mirror. It was a rather confused article, but one which I am sure she read and understood clearly. It was about a family whose requirements——

Mr. Bob Brown: Surely when the hon. Gentleman speaks from the Opposition Front Bench about the anomalies and hardships created by the anomalies in the 1948 Act, he must realise that his party had 13 years in which to do the necessary researches. Surely this smacks of hypocrisy.

Mr. Macmillan: I was expecting someone to make this remark and it is not good enough. We are not now discussing the so-called failings of the Tory Party. We are discussing the failure of this Bill to deal with the problem. It is no good hon. Members opposite saying that they have not had enough time. That excuse has been made before. It is here; it is in the Bill. This is the opportunity. I am not blaming the Government for missing previous opportunities: I am blaming them for missing an opportunity in the Bill which they are presenting to us now as a major item of social reform.
The case quoted in the newspaper concerned a family whose requirements were £14 7s. 6d. If the earner of this family was a high wage earner, he would get the full amount of this requirement plus £2 10s. for his rent, but if he were not a high wage earner and his earnings were normally £12 10s., £12 10s. is what he would get. It cannot be right that he and his family should have £1 17s. 6d. too little, if the rent is paid out of National Assistance or £4 7s. 6d. too little if the rent is not so paid. All that one can suppose is that the party opposite agrees that such a case should be left to private charity, whose task is now of course made more difficult by the Selective Employment Tax.
I agree that this problem cannot be dealt with without dealing with the problem of the low wage earner. It is no excuse to say that it is too difficult at this stage, that reasons of practicality, to get something going, require a solution to the problem to be omitted from the Bill. The Government have had a long time to think this out. If hon. Gentlemen opposite blame the Tory Party for not acting, I would say that they have had all this time, when they have been blaming us, to construct some better plan.
There is no new idea about the low wage earner and nothing has been thought out—because, it must be said, previous ideas were concerned more with propaganda than with dealing with practical problems. I hope that the Minister without Portfolio will deal more effectively with this problem when he produces his long-term review. I do not believe that it is even known with any degree of accuracy how many such families there are, and I am glad that the Minister has undertaken to find out. If, as my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South said, the Bill is to be regarded as a precursor for wider action, I hope that the Minister will consider putting at least some form of mechanism into the Measure to deal with this problem.
I must agree with the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Moonman) who was suspicious of social research and thought that to get the results of research applied more effectively was the greater difficulty. I would prefer a separate organisation to the Commission and I do not believe, as my hon. Friend the Member for Peters-field (Miss Quennell) said, that this type of analysis and application can come effectively from an organisation which is charged with the day-to-day administration of these benefits.
There are a number of curious further anomalies, particularly in relation to the disregards and especially affecting the chronic sick and the disabled. I cannot understand why the opportunity was not taken—it being taken to remove the special place of tuberculosis, presumably because it is, fortunately, no longer such a problem—to see that other problem diseases such as multiple sclerosis and other disabling diseases did not justify

treatment exactly parallel to the treatment of the blind.
There are several anomalies concerning the capital disregards, although here I must unreservedly congratulate the Government on what they have done to encourage small savings and investment by removing the fixed upper limit; and here I cannot agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) about this being an inadequate provision. I think that it should be extremely satisfactory indeed.
There is a case—which, perhaps, we may develop on another occasion—for seeing whether the needs and provisions affecting savings and so on should necessarily be the same for supplementary pensions as for supplementary allowances. Is there not a strong case for considering these problems, particularly concerning savings, in a slightly different way?
I hope that the Minister will give an assurance that paragraph 27 of Schedule II—which deals with a person who is deliberately spending his or her money to get higher benefits—does not apply to small savers who are spending their money to lead a more comfortable life and who will, as a result, later get a higher benefit. It would be unfortunate if the Bill hit these people.
In general, the Bill has been met with mixed feelings. We must, of course, welcome any Measure which makes a genuine improvement in the conditions of those whose conditions have the most room for improvement. It is encouraging to find that in social security matters, as in foreign policy, the Government are accepting so many of the ideas put forward by the Opposition. Perhaps the hopes of the right hon. Lady the Minister, that our productivity will rise to make the money benefits increased by the Bill increase in real terms as well, will be more than hopes if the Government follow the Opposition's ideas on economic affairs.
There is inevitably a sense of sadness at the opportunity which has been missed to give real extra help where it is needed, and a sense of foreboding in that here is another example of the timidity, lack of imagination and, in some ways, lack of understanding of modern problems in our society that characterises so much of the Government's present thinking. I hope that we


will have ample time in Committee to discuss and improve the Bill.
If I might intervene in what one might call a contest between two ladies, the Minister could do well with the guidance of my hon. Friend the Member for Melton, in addition to other suggestions from this side of the House. We might then be able to say at the end of the day with Shakespeare that
All's well that ends well.
And perhaps we on this side might even be able to misquote Helena from that play and say:
What we can do, can do no hurt to try,
Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy:
She that of greatest works is finisher,
Oft does them by the weakest minister.

9.30 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Norman Pentland): Although the debate on the Bill has been severely restricted, we have had a most interesting and constructive Second Reading debate. There have been many constructive and thoughtful speeches by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Strangely enough, the only niggling political speeches we have had today came from the Front Bench spokesmen opposite.
I took the opportunity of looking at the OFFICIAL REPORT of the debate in 1947, when the National Assistance Bill was introduced. Exactly the same thing happened then. We had very constructive, thoughtful speeches from both sides of the House by hon. Members on the back benches yet the Front Bench spokesmen of the Tory Party, in opposition at that time, were just as niggling and nagging and searching for political criticism as the Front Benchers opposite have been today. I am sorry to have to say that particularly with reference to the hon. Lady the Member for Melton (Miss Pike).
The hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) quoted Shakespeare. I can give him another quotation. I forget who wrote it, but it is very relevant to the Tory Party:
Our deeds still travel with us from afar
And what we have been makes us what we are.
We are exactly in the same position tonight, concerning the Front Benches as we were in 1947. However, I congratulate the hon. Member for Farnham on

making his maiden speech from the Opposition Dispatch Box. After listening to his speech tonight, I can assure him that for many years that stretch ahead of him he will continue speaking from that Box. I am quite sure of that.
It is in a better frame of mind that I sincerely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) on a splendid maiden speech. He not only proved that he was aware of the historic features which apply to his constituency, but that he was fully aware, also, of the great problems facing the neediest section of our community. I congratulate him most sincerely on a forthright and thoughtful speech. We look forward to hearing him many times in our debates on social security.
I shall try to deal with as many points which have been raised this evening as I can, but no doubt there will be many more raised in Committee in the weeks ahead. I also pay tribute as other hon. Members have done to the way in which the National Assistance Board and its local officers have administered the National Assistance scheme over the past 18 years. I make it perfectly clear that the proposals embodied in the Bill to dissolve the Board and to replace the scheme by a new scheme of non-contributory benefits does not in any way cast any reflection on the sterling and devoted work which the Board has done over those years.
Nor do I overlook the sterling work that has been done by our own Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance officers in this field. They have at all times used tact and understanding when offering advice to members of the public on matters affecting National Assistance.
Despite all this, we all know that there is a substantial number of old people who, for one reason or another, have not claimed the help to which they were entitled from the Assistance Board. None of us can feel happy that this situation exists. Therefore, in the Government's view, the only way to overcome the problem is to recast the whole of our provision for those in financial need. That is the real object of the Bill.
Some concern has been expressed today that by retaining a separate body within the Ministry of Social Security to administer the new scheme there is a risk


that non-contributory benefits will in time prove no more acceptable than National Assistance is at present. This misconceives the position of the Supplementary Benefits Commission within the new framework. What our old people have disliked is having to apply for a benefit from a different department from that which runs the National Insurance scheme.
Many of them have felt that, while they were entitled to the pension, they were not entitled to the supplement from the Board. What we are doing in the Bill will change all that, because the Commission will operate within the Ministry of Social Security and all local offices will be Ministry of Social Security offices, just as all those working for the Commission will be Ministry of Social Security officers.
Moreover, the Bill makes it quite clear that any person whose financial circumstances warrant it has a right to claim supplementary pension or allowance and that there is to be no question of the Commission reducing the amount of any pension under any discretionary powers. This is quite a new concept. I do not think that the fact that the adjudication is done under the authority of the Commission rather than by a local insurance officer will make any difference one way or the other to the pensioner.
Before I proceed further I should perhaps say a few words about the relationship of these proposals to our public expenditure programme. The National Plan allocated a certain sum to provide real improvements, other than increases to make up for loss of value due to rising prices, in benefits and assistance up to 1970. That part of the cost of the present proposals which represents a real improvement in standards will be contained within the allocation in the Plan. We are convinced that the proposals now put before the House to improve the lot of the poorest of our people must have a prior claim on this allocation.
I turn now to another aspect which has brought disappointment to many hon. Members, namely, that the Bill does nothing about what is generally called the wage-stop provision. Concern has been expressed by a number of hon. Members on both sides. I emphasise that in social security this matter must be kept

in a proper perspective. The wage-stop in itself does not cause hardship. The wage-stop ensures only that a man is not better off out of work than he would be when at work. As my right hon. Friend said in her opening speech, this problem has been with us for years and years. In my view, the hardship is caused in the first place by the low earnings which the man is paid at work.

Miss Quennell: Miss Quennell rose——

Mr. Pentland: There is not much time. I must get on.
My right hon. Friend told the House that there are at present fewer than 15,000 people all told whose National Assistance grants are limited by the wage-stop provisions. We have to remember, also, that the number reaches this level because we increased National Insurance and National Assistance benefits by such a substantial amount last year. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Of course. Obviously, the higher these rates become in relation to the lower ranges of earnings the more people are liable to be wage-stopped when they become unemployed. That is one of the facts of life.
There is another aspect to the problem. It has been rightly said that the fact that there has to be a wage-stop at all shows that some people in regular work have earnings which fall below National Assistance levels now and will fall below the levels of the new non-contributory benefit in the future. Disappointment has been expressed that the Bill does nothing to help these people, particularly the lower-paid earners with large families, who will continue to have an income barely sufficient to meet their needs. We have been asked—may I have the attention of the hon. Member for Farnham, who asked the specific question—why nothing is being done for the lower-paid workers' families in the Bill.
I assure the House, as my right hon. Friend did, that this is certainly not because the Government have failed to recognise that there is a major social problem here. But, in the Government's view, action must be based on facts, not on hypotheses. As the hon. Lady the Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell) said, not sufficient facts are yet known. We ourselves have found that we do not know enough about the circumstances of these unfortunate people.
Incidentally, it is most remarkable, now that the Opposition tell us that they regard this as one of the most urgent social needs the country faces, that they did nothing whatever to establish the facts during the long years when they held power. Nothing was done. Nothing was done, by the time we came into the Ministry, to ascertain the true facts of the situation. [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) need not laugh. He was not even n the House when the Opposition were in power. I understand that he was in the Foreign Office, so he knows nothing about this. I am giving the facts of life.
It is astonishing how the social conscience has been stirred among Conservatives now that they are in opposition. Yet they try to tell us that we are doing nothing to overcome the problem.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: Mr. Maurice Macmillan rose——

Mr. Pentland: I allowed the hon. Gentleman to continue and did not interrupt his speech. I have quite a lot to say, and I intend to say it.
We regard this problem as one which cannot and should not be shelved. We are doing something about getting the information on which to frame our policy. As my right hon. Friend explained, we are arranging a countrywide survey of the circumstances of 2,750 families with two or more children. When the results of the survey are available, we shall be in a position to take action, just as we have taken action to reconstruct the non-contributory benefits scheme in the light of what we learnt from the retirement pensioners' survey.
Some doubt has also been expressed as to whether or not the Commission will have the same flexible, discretionary powers as the National Assistance Board to meet the special needs of individual claims. There is no need for concern on that score. Through the long-term additions for all pensioners and other longterm provisions we are avoiding the need for detailed inquiries into small items of expenditure.
As the House knows, the Assistance Board has to make these inquiries at present so as to ensure that nothing has being overlooked. The serious way in which the Board takes its responsibilities can be seen from the fact that over 70 per

cent. of our old people now have such additions, but most of them, as my right hon. Friend said, are for little items of day-to-day expenditure—having the windows cleaned, sending out the laundry, the cost of extra coal in winter, and so on.
We think that this can be far better dealt with by increasing the income to a level at which we can be confident that there is sufficient margin to allow for such expenses. We all know that no one likes to take his laundry book along in order to obtain 1s. 6d. or 2s. 6d. from the Assistance Board. It is this kind of inquiry that the long-term addition of 9s. a week will do away with.
Nevertheless, I want to make it clear that the Commission will still have ample powers to make additional allowances where there is some really large item of extra expenditure—for instance, heavy laundry bills where a person is incontinent or the extra cost of an expensive diet. The Commission, like the Board now, will be able to make lump-sum grants for such items as bedding and clothing as required.

Miss Pike: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that no one will be worse off? Where there is heavy, exceptional expenditure the average is now 10s. a week. In such cases the new provision may be marginal only, but is it a fact that no one will be worse off?

Mr. Pentland: I assure the hon. Lady that no one under this scheme will be worse off—no one at all.
The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) asked specific questions about individual rates. I ask the House to consider how far we have moved in the last 18 months, because the impression they gave was that there was not a sufficient increase in the rates now being brought forward, for many of the families we are concerned about in the Bill.
When we came to office in October, 1964, the basic assistance rate for a person living alone was £3 3s. 6d., plus rent. In March, 1965, with the biggest increase ever both in absolute and in real terms, we put the rate up to £3 16s.
Now, little more than a year later, we are proposing to provide a guaranteed income for the elderly, and those who


are in need of long-term supplementation, of £4 10s. a week, plus rent. On any count it must be regarded as a major step forward in the standard provided to have moved in two years from £3 3s. 6d. a week, plus some small discretionary allowance, to £4 10s. a week as of right for every old person who is living alone.
There were some questions about the disregards themselves. What we have done is to look again at the whole structure of the disregards and to recast them into what is a more logical and equitable pattern—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Farnham and the hon. Lady the Member for Melton asked some specific questions. I do not know whether I have annoyed them, but if they want to hear the answers to their questions I hope that I can have their attention while I deal with this matter.
I was saying that what we have done is to look again at the whole of the structure of the disregards and to recast them into what is a more logical and equitable pattern. The only indication which the Tory Party gave in its manifesto, with its 131 points of action, was that it would raise the amount of capital which a person could have and still be entitled to assistance.
We have adopted a more radical approach. First, we are removing altogether the fixed upper limit of £600 as the amount of capital which a person can hold. This means, for example, that an elderly non-pensioner living only on his savings and paying 30s. a week rent will be entitled to a supplementary pension unless his savings amount to £2,000 or more, while a married couple in the same position will now be able to have as much as £2,500. These are the people for whom the Tory Party is expressing such concern and about whom hon. Members opposite expressed such concern in the past, but for whom, it must be remembered, they did nothing at all.
Secondly, we are allowing the income taken from capital to rank for inclusion in the disregard of 20s. a week of other income. The effect of this is that any pensioner who has nothing but his retirement pension and some savings will have savings up to £800 totally ignored, no matter how he has chosen to invest them. Thirdly, we have abolished the special war savings provision which gave pre-

ferential treatment to money invested in certain Government securities—a perfectly valid concession when it was introduced during the war years, but now quite irrelevant and often the cause of confusion.
At the same time, the income disregards are being revised to make them both more logical and simpler to understand. In particular, as well as raising the disregard on disability pensions from 30s. to 40s., we have introduced a new overall disregard—a personal allowance if you like—of 20s. of the total of income from any source whatever—annuity, occupational pension, charitable payment, trust income and so on.
Time does not permit me to deal with every issue and there are no doubt many which I have overlooked, not deliberately. I know that they will be raised again in Committee.
With the bringing together of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and the National Assistance Board to make the Ministry of Social Security it will be possible to ensure that social security policy is looked at as a whole and the distinction in the administration of contributory and non-contributory benefits will begin to taper off. In the noncontributory benefit scheme we have devised a means-related benefit of a different order to National Assistance.
When it was introduced in 1947 the National Assistance scheme represented a great advance on what had gone before. When he was moving the Second Reading of the National Assistance Bill, in November, 1947, our late colleague, Aneurin Bevan, said that the occasion marked the end of a whole period of the social history of Great Britain. So it did. That was nearly 20 years ago and the task we are now engaged in with our review of social security is the adapting and recasting of provisions both for the emergencies of life and for those who are permanently out of the employment field.
With the scheme for earnings-related supplements to unemployment, sickness benefit, and widow's allowance we most certainly wrote the first chapter in the new era of social security. The Bill now before the House is the second chapter of that story. We have aimed at eliminating those features which have caused people, particularly our old folk, to be reluctant to accept the provision which the country


wants them to have, and knows they are entitled to have. Throughout the Bill the emphasis is placed under the claimant's right to benefit and in place of what has been to a great extent a discretionary system we shall have a benefit, to which there is a clear entitlement.
I said a moment ago that the Bill represented the second chapter in the new era of social security. We recognise that there is much to be done in this highly sensitive and human sphere of social security. It is with a sense of real pride that tonight I have the opportunity of recommending the acceptance of this Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Harper.]

Committee Tomorrow.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered.
That the Proceedings on the Post Office (Subway) Bill may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour, though opposed.—[Mr. Harper.]

MINISTRY OF SOCIAL SECURITY [MONEY]

[Queen's Recommendation signified]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 88 (Money Committees).

[Sir ERIC FLETCHER in the Chair]

Resolved,
That. for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the appointment of a Minister of Social Security and to replace Part II of the National Assistance Act 1948 by provisions giving rights to non-contributory benefit, it is expedient to authorise:

A. The payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

(a) any benefit payable under that Act;
(b) the remuneration of the Minister and of any Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Social Security and of members of any Commission appointed under that Act:
(c) the expenses of the Minister, except such as are by virtue of any enactment to be defrayed in some other manner;
(d) such expenses of any Commission appointed under that Act as are incurred with the approval of the Minister, including expenses so incurred in defraying travelling expenses;
(e) expenses and travelling and other allowances (including compensation for loss of remunerative time) of members of local

advisory committees appointed under that Act and of persons attending at the request of such a committee;
(f) any increase attributable to that Act in the expenses so payable under any other enactment.

B. The payment of any sums into the Exchequer.—[Miss Herbison.]

Resolution to be reported.

Report to be received Tomorrow.

POST OFFICE (SUBWAY) BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

10.1 p.m.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Joseph Slater): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I should like to thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for the spirit in which they have received the Bill. Subject to its receiving the approval of another place, we shall go ahead with constructing this subway so as to improve the service which we can give to the citizens of the great City of Birmingham.

10.2 p.m.

Mr. Paul Bryan: I have now welcomed the Bill on seven occasions, in Committee and at other times. I can only say, once again, that we on this side of the House wish it godspeed.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

DOCKS AND HARBOURS [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision for regulating the employment of dock workers, it is expedient to authorise—

1. the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament—

(a) of any sums required by the Minister of Transport for making to licensing authorities loans required by such authorities for making payments under the provisions of that Act relating to the compensation of persons prohibited from employing, or working on their own account as, dock workers;
(b) of any sums required by the Minister of Labour for making loans to the National Dock Labour Board, or any other body for the time being responsible for the administration of any labour scheme within the meaning of that Act, for enabling the said Board or other body to remedy defaults in the provision or maintenance of welfare amenities under that Act;


(c) of fees and allowances to persons appointed to hold inquiries under that Act, and to assessors at such inquiries, and allowances to persons giving evidence before such inquiries;
(d) of any expenses incurred by any Minister in carrying that Act into effect; and
(e) of any increase attributable to that Act in the sums payable out of moneys so provided by way of rate deficiency grant or Exchequer equalisation grant under the enactments relating to local government in England and Wales or in Scotland;
2. the payment into the Exchequer and the re-issue out of the Consolidated Fund of any sums required to be so paid or re-issued by virtue of provisions of the said Act relating to the assumption of debts by harbour authorities.

Resolution agreed to

CENSORSHIP OF STAGE PLAYS

So much of the Lords Message [17th May] as communicates the Resolution, That it is desirable that a Joint Committee of both Houses be appointed to review the law and practice relating to the censorship of stage plays, to be considered forthwith.—[Mr. Harper.]

So much of the Lords Message considered accordingly.

Resolved,

That this House doth concur with the Lords in the said Resolution.—[Mr. Harper.]

Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (SERVICES)

Mr. Humphrey Atkins, Mr. David Griffiths, Mr. John Hunt, Mr. Paget, and Mr. Victor Yates to be members of the Catering Sub-Committee:

Mr. Frank Allaun, Mr. Maurice Edelman, Mr. Ian Gilmour, Mr. Peter Kirk, and Mr. Robert Maxwell to be members of the Library Sub-Committee:

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke, Mr. Michael Hamilton, Dr. David Kerr, Mr. Brian Parkyn, and Mr. William Roots to be members of the Administration Sub-Committee:

Mr. Robert Cooke, Mr. William Hannan, Mr. Martin Maddan, Mr. Stanley Orme, and Mr. Richard Sharples to be members of the Accommodation and Housekeeping Sub-Committee.—[Mr. Harper.]

POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK REGULATIONS

10.4 p.m.

Mr. Stratton Mills: I beg to move,
That the Post Office Savings Bank Regulations, 1966, a draft of which was laid before this House on 21st April, be not made.
I think that the Assistant Postmaster-General will accept that the Opposition have constructively supported the Act which went through the House in the last Parliament, and will agree that we can claim at least some part of its parentage. However, we feel it right to probe these Regulations now that they are before the House. A number of the detailed points in the Regulations with which we have some doubts were fully debated in Committee, and it is not necessary to burden the House with them. The Regulations are partly a consolidation Measure, consolidating the 1938 Regulations and the subsequent Amendments to them, as well as extending them to the new investment deposits created by the 1966 Act.
We on this side of the House welcome the oportunity which the Government have taken to consolidate all these Measures into one document. Many of the Regulations have a slightly motheaten appearance, and I suspect that some of them date back to the time of Mr. Gladstone. It is, perhaps, a pity that the Assistant Postmaster-General has not looked at some of them afresh. I hope that he can assure us this evening that, when the Regulations have gone through the House, a pamphlet will be prepared in simple terms, setting out their operation for the benefit of the general public.
The development of the Post Office banking services has been increasing in momentum, and certain of the new services that are now promised will greatly extend the range of services. Is the Assistant Postmaster-General satisfied that the structural organisation is satisfactory? Should the banking side of the Post Office be more of a self-contained unit than at present, similar to the self-contained units for posts and telecommunications?
I understand that McKinsey and Co., the management consultants, are looking at the whole question of postal services. Perhaps they might look at the


banking side of the Post Office, because I suspect that many of the procedures in operation go back a very long time and are, perhaps, not fully relevant to the services now being developed.
There are five detailed points which I wish to put to the Assistant Postmaster-General concerning the Regulations. My first concerns Regulations 20 and 21, which deal with the procedure on withclrawal. As is well known, £10 a day can be withdrawn on demand from the Post Office, and more can be withdrawn by sending the savings book to the principal office of the Post Office Savings Bank. Is it satisfactory that the book should be sent to the principal office?
The Assistant Postmaster-General should tell us this evening why this is necessary. He may say that it is essential for checking accounts, but he will know that the trustee savings banks can pay out £50 on demand and that their local offices have a much greater discretion in making payment on a local basis to individual depositors. The building societies are also much more flexible in their procedure, and the ordinary joint stock banks inevitably must have a much more fluid system. Is not a more flexible procedure possible than the existing system of sending the savings book or withdrawal form and having everything centralised at head office?
Secondly, Regulation 40 deals with withdrawal from the investment deposit account. A month's notice of withdrawal is required. I should like to know what power the Postmaster-General has to pay out money in an emergency. Regulation 40 (1) uses the words
Except where the Postmaster-General otherwise directs".
I suspect that these words may be sufficient to give discretion to the Postmaster-General. Emergencies very often happen, and there could easily be circumstances in which it is impossible for people to wait for a month before being able to withdraw money from the investment account. It may be, for example, a matter of the illness of a relative abroad or of putting down a deposit on a house. These are matters in which a much more discretionary procedure would be welcome.
My third point concerns Regulations 29 to 35 and the procedure of nomination. This is a continuation of the pro-

cedure in the 1938 Regulations, but it has now been extended to investment deposit accounts. If I may remind hon. Members of the procedure, under a nomination a person who has an account may nominate someone to receive his funds in the Post Office after his death—the important feature is that the nomination is not revoked by a subsequent will.
I have considerable doubt as to the desirability of this practice. Certainly it was satisfactory when the ordinary accounts of the Post Office catered for smaller savers with, perhaps, average accounts of £200. Now, however, the investment deposit accounts can go as high as £5,000, in addition to whatever money a person has in the ordinary account.
I question whether, for what might be a comparatively large sum of that kind, this nomination procedure is desirable. Suppose, for example, a person makes a nomination and years later makes a will but does not reveal to his solicitor that he has made an earlier nomination. His assets in the Post Office Savings Bank will not be covered by the will as the nomination cannot be revoked by a subsequent will. Considerable unfairness could arise in this kind of situation.
The Assistant Postmaster-General will be familiar with the procedure in the trustee savings banks in which a limit of up to only £200 can be covered by nomination, as provided by the 1956 Regulations. It may well be that in the drafting of the present Regulations this point has been overlooked, and I suggest that a limit should be placed upon the amount which can be dealt with by nomination.
The fourth point which I should like to make deals with Regulation 41, which concerns the interest on investment deposits. In Committee, we expressed our dissatisfaction with the procedure by which only moneys which have been in the Post Office for a complete month were eligible for interest, and we have no wish to go over that ground again. However, the Postmaster-General hinted that the procedure might be changed when some more mechanised accounting system was installed. I suspect there was a slight change of emphasis between what he said in Committee and what he said subsequently at Question Time to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Captain W. Elliot) on


Wednesday, 18th May. I felt that on that occasion he was looking more favourably towards the proposal of introducing a more flexible system.
I would ask the Assistant Postmaster-General to tell us what arrangements he proposes to make to publicise the fact that interest is payable only if the deposit comes in before the 1st of the month and, similarly, that the interest for certain days is lost unless the withdrawal is made shortly after the beginning of the month. That is a matter which should be publicised, and it might be put in the form of a note in the front of the deposit book. It should be displayed in the Post Office, it might be outlined in the pamphlet which I understand is to be produced, and it should also be drawn to the attention of depositors on the lodgement and withdrawal dockets in each Post Office. It is important that it should be fully drawn to the attention of depositors.
My fifth and last point deals with Regulations 52 to 54, which concern the indemnity of the Postmaster-General. Regulation 52 is very widely drawn. As I read it, if a Post Office book is stolen and, by mistake, the Post Office pays out to the wrong person, under the Regulation as drawn the Postmaster-General is not liable, even though the mistake may have been due to negligence in accepting an incorrect signature. The only remedy which the depositor would seem to have is to find the person who took his book and withdrew the moneys and institute civil proceedings against him.
That is an unsatisfactory procedure, especially now that the moneys in such accounts can amount to very substantial sums. A joint stock bank is not protected in that way. If it pays out on a cheque carrying the wrong signature or on a cheque from a book which has been stolen where someone goes to the bank and forges a signature, the bank is responsible. I understand that the trustee savings banks do not have anything like the same immunity, and I do not think that the building societies do if they make an error of that kind. I would suggest a similar procedure in the Post Office, and I ask the Assistant Postmaster-General to look into the way in which Regulation 52 has been drawn.
Those are just five basic points on the Regulations. In general, we wish them well, but we should welcome some clarification on those points from the Assistant Postmaster-General.

10.19 p.m.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Joseph Slater): Let me say, first of all, that I am grateful to the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) for the obvious interest and care with which he has studied the draft Regulations and for the suggestions and comments that he has made.
Before I deal with them specifically, the House will wish me to say a general word about the purpose of the Regulations.
First, they cover new matters which were provided for in the Post Office Savings Bank Act passed by the previous Parliament, notably the Investment Account Service which the Post Office Savings Bank hopes to introduce in a few weeks' time. Then there are a few small amendments to the conditions of ordinary deposits, some of which also arise from the 1966 Act, the principal ones being mentioned in the Explanatory Note to the Regulations. We have also been glad to take this opportunity of consolidating the Savings Bank Regulations as a whole, and the new code brings together the changes arising from the 1966 Act with the existing Regulations.
The hon. Gentleman, when talking about these Regulations asked what plans the Post Office had for the long-term organisation of the Savings Bank. He asked whether any change was contemplated in the structure, and whether the Post Office would call in McKinsey's to examine the structure of the Savings Bank. The hon. Gentleman touched on the question of the administrative structure of the Post Office in relation to the Savings Bank. He asked what our longterm plans were and what reconstructions we had in mind. With respect, I feel that this is not the right occasion to embark on the discussion of such a fundamental and indeed complex matter as this. I therefore suggest that it would be right for me to put this issue aside and to limit what I have to say to matters directly concerned with the Regulations against which the hon. Gentleman is praying.
The hon. Gentleman also made some reference to publicity, Posters and showcards advertising the Investment Account service—I say this for the information of both hon. Gentlemen who take a great interest in these matters —which point out that the initial interest rate which we are seeking to introduce is 51 per cent., are being, distributed to all Savings Bank post offices for exhibition when the new service starts. Copies of leaflets giving information about the service will also be issued through post offices and put in the leaflet containers on public counters.
A full publicity campaign, which is being organised by one of the major advertising agencies, using the national Press and other media, will be launched later in the year, probably in September. By wailing until then we hope to take advantage of the seasonal increase in savings which follows the summer holiday period. That deals with the aspect of publicity in which the hon. Gentleman is so interested.
The hon. Gentleman then queried the procedure for making applications for withdrawal to the principal office of the Savings Bank instead of to local offices. The whole basis of the Post Office Savings Bank system is, and always has been, that the records of depositors' accounts should be kept centrally. It is this factor which makes it possible for depositors to operate their accounts at any of the 21,000 Savings Bank post offices throughout the country.
Within this system we provide facilities for withdrawal of up to £10 on application at any local office—under Regulation 21—but I must tell the House that we cannot afford to take any greater risk than that, and application for larger withdrawals must be carefully checked against the ledger account held centrally. They must, therefore, be forwarded to the principal office. It would, I submit, be pointless for depositors to apply for such withdrawals at local offices, merely for the office to forward them to the principal office, because this in itself would merely introduce delay.
The next question raised was with regard to the limitation of the number of crossed warrants. Regulation 21(1,a)

applies here. The hon. Gentleman said that he would like an explanation of this paragraph which provides
that the Postmaster-General may in his discretion limit the number of crossed warrants which may be issued to or under the direction of the same depositor in any Savings Bank year.
A crossed warrant is virtually a cheque. It can be used to transfer money to one's own account in a joint stock bank or to the account of a third party. It thus uniquely provides a cheque service for which no charge is made, from an account on which interest is paid. As it is, in addition, an expensive service to operate, the Post Office must be watchful —since it is the trustee of people's investments—that it is not abused, always bearing in mind that the Post Office Savings Bank's function is to provide facilities for saving and not a current account service.
The power to restrict the use of crossed warrants is used only exceptionally. Our practice is to use the regulation in general terms and to seek the depositor's cooperation in a more modest use of the service. We have, however, had to step in where, for example, as many as 70 crossed warrants were asked for in a year and where nearly 20 were requested on one occasion.
The hon. Member asked about emergency withdrawals—Regulation 21 (1,c), concerning payments on demand on ordinary accounts. The demand withdrawal service is vulnerable to fraud because it permits withdrawal at any of our 21,000 post offices without a check against the records of the accounts which are kept centrally by the Post Office Savings Bank. The purpose of this provision is to provide some protection against fraud by calling in the bank book for a subsequent check with the ledger record.
We operate the regulation as reasonably as we can consistent with adequate security. We permit a depositor to make two withdrawals up to £10 each in a period of seven days before his book is retained for comparison against the ledger record. We then return the book as rapidly as we can. I submit that without this arrangement, and from information that I have had from the Department, fraud losses—already very serious—would undoubtedly be much greater.
The hon. Member then turned to the question of the withdrawal of investments —Regulation 40 (1). He asked about the procedure for emergency withdrawals within the normal period of one month's notice. As the condition of one month's notice will be given wide publicity, and as depositors will normally have £50 worth of ordinary deposits which they can draw on first, we would expect applications for emergency withdrawals of investment deposits to be very rare. This is the feeling of the Department.
The opening words of Regulation 40(1) are:
Except where the Postmaster General otherwise directs,
and these are intended to provide a loophole in very exceptional cases where grave hardship might be pleaded, and which might warrant special treatment.
An interesting comparison is that encashment of Development Bonds requires one month's notice under the relevant propectus. This operates without exception, and no real difficulty arises.
Then we come to Regulations 29 to 35, concerning nominations. The hon. Gentleman wanted to know whether any power to make nominations is desirable and whether the Post Office Savings Bank nominations should not be restricted to smaller amounts. This raises a wide issue, because powers for nomination exist not only for the Post Office Savings Bank and for the other savings services operated by the Post Office, but also for the Trustee Savings Banks and a variety of other bodies and institutions, such as the friendly societies, trade unions, and industrial and provident societies. Legislation on this subject in general goes back into the last century. The power for making regulations for the nominations of Post Office Savings Bank deposits derived originally from an Act of 1883.
The power of the Postmaster-General to make regulations with the consent of the Treasury for the nomination of Saving Bank deposits used to be limited to £100, but this limit was specifically removed by the Saving Bank Act, 1920, and Regulations providing for nomination up to the full amount of an account were made in the following year and have operated ever since. The nomination ser-

vice is not very widely used in the Post Office Savings Bank, but it is clear that a number of depositors still find it a simple and convenient way of disposing of their deposits at death. The absence of any limit on the amount under nomination does not, in our experience, cause any real difficulty.
Each year—I believe that this is the information that the hon. Gentleman wanted—about 15,000 new nominations are registered in the Post Office Savings Bank where in total over 360,000 nominations are now in force. We understand that the Trustee Savings Bank has a limit of £500 on its nominations. Of course, we are not in a position to comment on experience of its service.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Would the hon. Gentleman look at this point again at a later stage to see if it is not likely to give rise to great problems? There are family inheritance problems as well. The amounts involved will now be very much larger and, as he says, the Trustee Savings Bank has put a limit on the amount.

Mr. Slater: Yes. I have no objection to looking at this matter again. We will see what the position is.
The hon. Gentleman then turned to the question of revocation of nominations. The position must be stated precisely in order to avoid disputes about the validity of a nomination on the depositor's death. But there is nothing peculiar about the way in which the Post Office treats the nominations. I understand that the rule that a nomination is not revoked by a subsequent will is common to all forms of nomination. This applies in the case of the Trustee Savings Bank, trade unions, industrial societies and the railways. The position seems to be fully understood by most people, but the Post Office takes care to ensure that each depositor receives a full explanation when making a nomination.
Coming to Regulation 41(1), concerning interest on investment deposits, the position on calculating day-to-day interest has been explained by my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General in Standing Committee and in reply to a Parliamentary Question by the hon. Member for Carshalton (Captain W. Elliot) on 18th May. There are practical operational difficulties in paying interest on a different basis


under the present manual system. We are, however, fully prepared to look at this again. We are planning and preparing the computer system, but it is bound to be some years before we can get the bank records on to computers.
I come now to the hon. Gentleman's observations on Regulation 52, concerning the indemnity of the Postmaster-General and his officers——

Mr. Mills: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves that point, would he deal with the question of publicising the position of interest withdrawals accruals, of putting it in the Post Office Savings book and in other forms to which I referred?

Mr. Slater: All that has been taken care of. I cannot mention all the matters which will go into the book, but a suitable reference will go in. On publicity, the pamphlet which has been drafted will give such information as possible to every depositor who cares to make a deposit or invest in this system.
Regulation 52, in the same terms as Regulation 49 of the 1938 Code, provides indemnity for the Postmaster-General for payments duly made and acts duly done in accordance with the Acts and Regulations. It covers cases in which the Postmaster-General exercises discretion, for example, in the case of payments made out on an account

if the child is seven years old, where, under Regulation 4(3), the Postmaster-General is satisfied that it is in the child's interests to allow the parent to make the withdrawal.
But the indemnity does not protect the Postmaster-General if the Savings Bank has done anything contrary to Regulations. It does not, for example, take away the depositor's right to have his account reinstated where the Savings Bank has paid a withdrawal from it on a forged application. We are most desirous, because of the interest which has been shown in this new savings operation, to get the thing going as quickly as possible. We believe that we shall be able to offer to people in their investments under the new scheme an adequate service and adequate compensation for their investments.
I am indebted to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has presented his case. I sincerely hope that my answers to his queries will give him clarification about how we expect to operate the new service.

Mr. Mills: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his most helpful explanation, and beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

CONTRACEPTIVES (PRESCRIPTION CHARGES)

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Bishop.]

10.37 p.m.

Mr. Leo Abse: The new decision to enable doctors in the National Health Service to make charges to a patient for prescribing or fitting contraceptive appliances is particularly unfortunate in the light of the absurdly ambiguous position of the family planning services of this country. Rarely has there been more public concern expressed about the increase in illegitimacy, never has there been more public debate about reforming the abortion laws, and never has there been in existence so weighty an opinion that so many children are suffering terrible deprivation, a rate which falls upon them because they are born to parents who already have more children than is possible for them to support.
It is also understood today that we pay a grim price in our divorce rates for the ignorance and fear of childbirth which precipitates so much marital disharmony. Yet although the need for the rapid availability of advice on planned parenthood is widely understood, the State's attitude to family planning is prissy and evasive. It lays down certain permissive rules within which local authorities can operate, and even those rules are severely limited so that the service which the local authorities may provide is one in which advice must be strictly limited to cases where there are medical reasons against a further pregnancy.
Snidely, the State then tries to wash its its hands of what I regard as one of its major duties, namely, to take all possible action to strengthen family stability and happiness. It merely hints in tortuous circulars to local authorities that they may strain the law to contribute to voluntary organisations, provided only that they are formed for the purpose of the prevention of illness.
Yet, in spite of the clamour for the need for abortion law reform, of the shock of the recent well-publicised report on poverty among children and of the well-known fact that divorces are

prompted so frequently by fear of childbirth, the State has totally dodged the need for contraceptive advice to those who wisely desire to achieve the aim of planned parenthood, even though no specific danger to health is involved. This devious avoidance of acknowledging that the State should be using all its efforts to provide contraceptive advice on social grounds, as recommended by the Royal Commission, is, unfortunately, continued in the decision which we are discussing tonight.
It is particularly unfortunate that I should have occasion to criticise a decision of a Minister who, in the past, has undoubtedly shown himself to be singularly sensitive to the need to have family planning on social grounds. But it is really no use the Minister saying, as he said in the exchanges at Question Time when we were discussing this issue, that this is a misunderstanding in that the doctor in the National Health Service has always been able to issue a private prescription for a contraceptive. Of course he has. We are well aware of that, but he has not until now been able to charge for it. And no amount of sophistry can cloak the fact that, having fulfilled our election pledge to abolish prescription charges, we now give a new right to doctors to charge for a prescription when a doctor believes that one should be given for compelling social reasons.
It is no less unfortunate that the Minister has agreed to do this even without any negotiation as to what charge may be made. He has conceded the right without agreeing the charge. It is true that, out of the exchanges that took place, the Minister indicated, as I understood it, that it may be a charge as low as 2s. 6d. Is that the figure which is in mind and, if it is—and I trust that it is no more—could not the Minister have told the doctors, at a time when on average they are getting more by way of an increase in pay than a seaman's total wage packet, that it ill becomes them to demand their miserable half-crowns for giving prescriptions to those who are in need of them for compelling social reasons? Could it not, in these negotiations, have been emphasised that this payment would act as a deterrent to the woman most in need—to the families about whom society is most


concerned because of their poor standards of child care; that each additional child would become an additional burden and so depress still further the family standards?
I will put a few questions to the Minister. What means, if any, will there be to determine whether a prescription is given free on medical grounds, or for payment on social grounds? Is the genuine anxiety of a wife fearing another unwanted pregnancy a medical or social reason? Does not the new provision put a premium on the doctor finding that it would be a social reason?
If the Minister seeks to reprimand me now, as he sought to reprimand one of my hon. Friends when the suggestion was put to him at Question Time, and say that there is no question of a doctor distorting his decision for the sake of half-a-crown, why is there the demand for the half-crown at all? If we did riot suspect an avaricious motive, we should not be pursuing the inquiry. If, in fact, doctors are fighting for this pittance, are we not justified in wondering whether they should be the sole arbiters in deciding whether a prescription is given for social rather than for medical reasons?
Why has this demand been made without insistence upon safeguards? The Minister knows perhaps better than anybody that the majority of teaching hospitals—it is an unfortunate fact—make little or no provision for training medical students in contraceptive techniques. We give extra payments to general practitioners who have certain special skills. If the Minister had to negotiate, would it not have been wise to insist that those who will now have the right to make these charges shall have the skills which could, perhaps, in some circumstances justify a charge being made?
If my right hon. Friend thinks that this is comparatively unimportant, let me remind him that lawyers know better. Even if the general public does not know, lawyers know of claims frequently arising in cases in which doctors, no doubt good in other spheres of work, are clumsy or ill trained and are sued for consequences such as tearing of the cervix. That is common enough. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Dr. John Dunwoody), who,

I think, may be about to interrupt me, will appreciate that I do not make that observation without it being well founded upon my clinical experience. There is some medical opinion that it is wrong to fit even an intra-uterine device, the coil, except in the operating theatre. This may or may not be correct, but what I do say is that, when we know that, unfortunately, doctors as a group have so little knowledge of contraceptive techniques, this could have been the moment, if negotiations were being toughly conducted, for the Minister to insist that those who sought this charge should at least be properly and effectively trained in the work which they were claiming they wanted to do for a certain price.
As I understand it, the Minister's excuse for this decision, given at Question Time, is that it would encourage people to go to the family doctor. I do not understand that argument. The idea that they can get contraceptive advice and a prescription by making a payment does not strike me as being a very effective method of encouraging people to come into the family planning service. However much my right hon. Friend may affirm that he thinks that this will help family planning, it is abundantly clear from what is said in the Third Report of Joint Discussions on the Family Doctor Service that the Minister has his apprehensions.
It is said in that Report that
The Government would want to be sure that the power to charge in no way discouraged family planning …
Why should they have these hesitations and doubts in the Report and yet express such certitude in the House at Question Time? These are precisely the doubts which are generally felt. Again, it is stated in the Report that the Government want to be sure that
when a doctor decided to prescribe oral contraceptives or to fit a contraceptive appliance
he did not act
to the disadvantage of a patient who required this service on medical grounds …
Is this why the Minister has decided to have a period of experiment? Why should there be such an experimental period if he and his Department did not have grave doubts on the matter?
I do not doubt that the family life of the nation will be much strengthened when general facilities for family planning devices and treatment are made available within the National Health Service from properly trained doctors. I regret that a step has been taken which, whatever sophistry may be advanced by way of reasons, will, in my view and in the view of many others, be one step further backward away from the goal of having a family planning advice service completely embedded within the National Health Service.

10.50 p.m.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Kenneth Robinson): I am well aware of the interest my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) has always taken in the family planning services. I certainly would not dissent from his opening remarks on the importance of the subject, although I reject utterly the strictures he levelled at the State's attitude, in so far as they were implicitly directed against me as the current "voice", so to speak, of the State in matters of health and welfare.
I appreciate my hon. Friend's concern, which I share, that no action should be taken which might discourage the development of these services. I am glad that he has raised the matter, not only because it gives me the opportunity to clear up any misunderstanding there may be arising over the proposed changes in the family doctor's terms of service as they concern family planning, but also because this is an occasion on which I may properly express my own views of the importance of these services.
I hope that I do not need to persuade my hon. Friend or the House that I am most anxious to promote family planning, that I have already taken important steps to that end and that I would not countenance any action which might have the effect of impeding this advance.
My hon. Friend referred by implication to the issue in February of a circular from the Ministry to local authorities giving guidance on the future development of the family planning services. That circular ended a period of over 30 years which had passed without a single word of advice from the centre about the local authorities' role in encouraging family planning. Perhaps I can remind

the House of the clear terms in which the services have been commended to the local authorities. I described them as
… an essential aspect of family welfare.
the circular went on:
Planned parenthood strengthens family life; lack of planning, often due to ignorance of effective methods of contraception, may lead to marital disharmony, ill-health and social breakdown, and in some cases even to criminal abortion and death.
The circular asked local authorities to review their present arrangements in the light of this statement of principles and of practical suggestions made to them. I hope my hon. Friend will agree that I have not been slow to promote family planning. It was a disappointment to me to discover the statutory limitations on local authorities' powers which confine their activities to those who require family planning services on medical grounds, but I cannot claim responsibility for the Statute that brought this about.
I want to ask my hon. Friend to regard the small charge, that it is proposed that family doctors shall be able to make to their patients in certain carefully prescribed circumstances, in the context of this new positive approach to the family planning service generally. I will now attempt to deal in some detail with the special position of the family doctor in relation to family planning.
On a previous occasion, my hon. Friend referred to the Royal Commission on Population and its recommendation that the giving of advice on contraception to married persons who wanted it should be accepted as a duty of the National Health Service, the responsibility for giving advice resting, in the Commission's view, on the family doctor. The Commission also suggested that there should be no restriction to giving advice only in cases where pregnancy should be avoided on medical grounds.
I should like to make it quite clear that there is no question of charges for family planning advice, which may include examination, given by family doctors to their National Health Service patients. The Government and the profession's representatives agree that where a doctor gives such advice, it is in all cases medical attendance and treatment properly forming part of the services he provides under the National Health Service. There is no charge for it at present


and no charge is proposed for it under the new contract for the family doctor service.
Coming now to the provision of the means of contraception as opposed to advice on family planning; where a family doctor decides that oral contraception should be prescribed on medical grounds because there are medical reasons against pregnancy, he may at present issue a free Health Service prescription. I can assure the House that no change whatever in this is proposed. The Government have no intention of singling out a particular drug—an oral contraceptive—needed on medical grounds and levying a charge for it while all other drugs which are medically necessary are provided free of charge. Such an action would he quite unjustified and wholly out of keeping with our decision to abolish prescription charges.
There are, however, occasions when a patient wishes to have oral contraceptives and her doctor judges that pregnancy would not be detrimental to her health. I would only say to my hon. Friend that this is a judgment which must be left to the family doctor concerned. Oral contraceptives are, therefore, in such cases needed only on what might be termed social grounds. On such occasions, the doctor may issue a private prescription, but at present he may make no charge for this service. This is a position which it is difficult and, indeed, impossible to defend logically.
The Government have now said that they are prepared as part of the new contract to agree that in future the doctor may make a small charge in these circumstances provided that he has satisfied himself initially that the oral contraceptives are not needed on medical grounds and that this continues to be the case. On that basis, the Government would amend the terms of service to permit a charge for this service, and similarly for the prescribing or fitting of a contraceptive appliance in social cases.
My hon. Friend took me to task because, he said, there had been no negotiation about the charge. No Minister of Health is in a position to negotiate a charge with the medical profession for services which come outside the doctor's obligation under the Health Service, any more than I can attempt to prescribe a

charge for an insurance certificate needed for private purposes by a man's employer.
I ask my hon. Friend to bear in mind that the doctor is providing a service in these circumstances which, though it may be, and I think is, socially desirable, is nevertheless not medically necessary. I know that the House appreciates just how hard pressed family doctors have been in coping with the strictly medical demands of their patients. I venture to suggest that where the doctor provides his patient with a service which cannot be said to fall within this description, it is not unreasonable that he should receive a small award for this extra work over and above his Health Service remuneration.
The profession will be making recommendations on the amount of the fee to be charged for prescribing oral contraceptives, just as it has always done in the case of fees for other work outside the National Health Service contract. I think that I can safely say that the fee will be only a small fraction of the amount which the patient will be paying in any event for the pills themselves over the period of several months which I would normally expect the prescription to cover.
Perhaps it would be appropriate for me at this point again to attempt to remove the misunderstanding which became evident when the question of a charge for the writing of prescriptions for contraceptives in social cases was discussed at Question Time on 9th May. On that occasion my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) both appeared to think that there was some discrepancy between the Government's pledge to remove the prescription charges and other Health Service charges and their acquiesence in this limited charge by general practitioners.
As I then pointed out, there is no discrepancy. The Government have already redeemed their pledge to remove the National Health Service prescription charges. The prescribing of contraceptives where no question of danger to health through pregnancy arises is not part of the family doctor's medical care under the National Health Service and for that reason, such prescriptions have always been private and not provided under the Service. There is no new principle involved in allowing National Health Service doctors to charge patients
for transactions which do not form part of the medical care which they provide for them. It has always been open to doctors to charge a fee for certificates desired for various private purposes. It is not unreasonable to regard the writing of prescriptions or the fitting of appliances not needed on medical grounds as broadly comparable with this existing arrangement.
I trust that what I have said has convinced my hon. Friend that I would in no way wish to discourage family planning. I hope that such incentive as there may be in this small reward will encourage more busy doctors to find time to acquaint themselves with family planning techniques and that patients may on the same account, hesitate less to take up their doctor's time for what is strictly speaking a non-medical purpose. If patients are prepared to pay the chemist a comparatively large amount for the pills, they will hardly grudge the doctor a small fee for prescribing them, especially as a single prescription is normally likely to cover several months' supply.
The Government have no reason to suppose that doctors will abuse the power to charge, but in any event the proposed new arrangements are to be regarded as an experiment, subject to review in the light of experience. This does not mean that I expect that they will be abused. The fact that this is experimental and subject to review is, shall we say, an additional incentive, if one were needed, for the doctors to fix the charge at a suitably low level and for their professional organisations to recommend a sufficiently low charge.
I can assure the House that I will keep a very careful eye on the arrangement and will certainly not hesitate to act should it prove contrary to my expectations to be less than satisfactory. I should be willing to consider any evidence which hon. Members might receive that would indicate that the proposal was acting in any way against the interests of family planning.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at three minutes past Eleven o'clock.